"'•'-^■('^ ''Mm-. ^^/ •^'- ^w" -'At ''--^^'' 



^^v^^'^ •**^Ste'- "^ ^"^ y^dHk'' \s^<.^ -^M'' \ ^^ 

A <^ 'o\?* 0*- '^^ *>5^\a <. 'f. »" .&*• '^ 



/'^\/ "°^'^-'/ *<5.'-^\/ 'V^ ^ 
/^%. '^^S ^^^^-^ "-w^** /^%. ^^^*" ^^%^ 



r»^ . o ■ • 



• • • ' x^ ■^**. ' • * A"^ 






.0 














o > ^^ 






'^^^^ \.*''^^\<v'^ ^^'^^^V^^ \*'^^^*\ 












^o^y 



■ftp .^i^^;*:*. ^^. v"^ .'- 




•^ 

<r^ 
'^ 





^'^ c'i'" **^^aiEJ^% '^'^ .^ ' ,><^^;«. >^ A-ft- 












^vO'i'^ 



.'^^ .*4 











J" .. %''•••'.< 




INSIDE THE GERMAN 
EMPIRE 




.TAMKS W. GERAItn. AMBASSADOR AT BKUT.IN 



INSIDE THE GERMAN 
EMPIRE 

IN THE THIRD YEAR 
OF THE WAR 



BY 

HERBERT BAYARD SWOPE 



ILLUSTRATED 
WITH PHOTOGRAPHS 




NEW YORK 

THE CENTURY CO. 

1917 



33 2^^ 



Copyright, 1917, by / 
The Century Co. 



Copyright, 1916, by 
The Press Publishing Co. 

(Tbb New Tobe Wobld) 

Published, January, 1917 



si 

JAN -8 1917 



TO 
MY MOTHER 



FOREWORD 

Throughout the world there is, and should be, 
deep interest in the conditions — economic, politi- 
cal, spiritual and military — under which Ger- 
many and her allies are sustaining themselves 
after more than two years of war. 

The facts and impressions contained in this 
book, gathered first hand by the author, whose 
friendship I value and whose professional equip- 
ment I admire, form an important contribution 
to contemporaneous history and possess a refer- 
ential value for the future. 'No subject today is 
more vital or worthier of serious attention. 

James W. Gerard, 

American Ambassador to the German Empire. 



INTRODUCTORY 

What of Germany to-day? How does she 
stand? How are her sons maintaining her far- 
flung battle-lines? Are her people despairing? 
Do they expect victory? When do they think 
the end will come? Do they starve? What of 
her alhes? What is her attitude towards Amer- 
ica — ^her dreams of peace — her fears of defeat — 
her plans for the future? 

These are a few of the questions I seek to an- 
swer in this book. They are vital to an under- 
standing of the condition of the world to-day and 
even more vital to speculation as to the status of 
the world to-morrow, for Germany is the key to 
the future. It will be her hands which will set 
the clock of peace, according to her strength or 
her weakness. So, an examination of her posi- 
tion to-day becomes an inquiry as to the time that 
peace shall come. 

"Inside the German Empire" is an effort to set 
forth objectively the things I saw during a three 

ix 



INTRODUCTORY 

months* trip to that country, which I made in the 
latter part of 1916. I was fortunate in being af- 
forded unusual opportunities for observation and 
the information I gained as a trained reporter, I 
am presenting here, keeping alwaj^s in mind the 
duty of a reporter — to be impartial, to be open- 
minded, and to find the truth. 

Because the Kaiser's realm is becoming more 
and more difficult for foreigners to enter, because 
the rigidity of the censorship has become extreme, 
because the Allies have interrupted mail and cable 
correspondence, Germany and the truth about the 
Germans become less and less known to the world. 
Therefore these pages may possess a double 
value: first, as offering an insight into the work- 
ings of the Germany of to-day; and second, in 
correcting certain of the evils that have arisen 
through misunderstanding caused by the lack of 
free commimication, for nothing is so productive 
of distrust and suspicion as ignorance. 

I hope that these papers may prove not with- 
out value as a contribution to the record of the 
last phases of the Great War. Not that the end 
is near — no one but a prophet could make such a 
pronouncement — but it is evident that Germany 



INTRODUCTORY 

and the Central Powers have settled down in 
plan and preparation to the final lines on which 
they will march to victory, compromise, or defeat. 
They are approaching the ultimate of their re- 
sources and in the utilization thereof, and come 
what may, their mental, spiritual, and physical 
attitudes will not be much changed when the end 
is reached. That is why it is proper to say that 
Germany to-day is in her last phase. She has 
called to the fighting line all her material and 
moral resources and now she awaits the successive 
moves of those alined against her. 

I was in France and England at the outbreak 
of the war, and in Germany during the first four 
months of the struggle, in the service of my paper, 
the New York "World." The earlier visit gave 
me a standard of comparison that enabled me to 
contrast the picture of the wild exaltation of 1914 
with the serious, somber, Germany of to-day. 

' Together, the two trips left me, I hope, truly 
an American and a neutral, but one who, without 
leanings toward either side, has deep sympathy 
for both, after having seen, heard and felt the 
black tragedy that is blocking Civilization's path 
with millions of dead and wounded. 

xi 



INTRODUCTORY 

Within this book I have tried to tell the story 
of German energies in the fields most interesting 
and important to America — the story of the em- 
pire spirituallj^ and politically, financially and in- 
dustrially, of her food, of her military, of her sub- 
ject peoples, of her heroes, of her attitude toward 
herself, toward her enemies and toward the rest 
of the world — in short, the story of her strengths 
and weaknesses. And I have added scattering 
notes of fugitive impressions and random facts 
that may help to give life, color, and detail. 

Tliis volume is based upon a series of articles I 
wrote for "The World," and I am grateful to Mr. 
Ralph Pulitzer of that paper for permission to 
use the material in this form, and for the encour- 
agement that he and others of my friends gave me 
to beheve that the work has value as a record of 
the present and a reference for the future. 

My especial thanks are due to Lewis Stiles 
Gannett for his assistance in the preparation and 
revision of the manuscript. 

Herbert Bayard Swope. 
New York, 
January 1, 1917. 



xu 



CONTEXTS 

PAGE 

CHAPTER I. The Foue Ways Towaed Peace 3 

Prospect of immediate peace small — Unwillingness to 
guarantee re-establishment of Belgimn or to re-cede 
Alsace-Lorraine — Four ways out seen: (1) By complete 
defeat of Allies; (2) By complete defeat of Germany; 
(3) By compromise; (4) By liberalization of German 
Empire — First two not seriously considered — Hope of 
Russian defection to German side — Germany-Russia- 
Japan: a "Dreibund of discontent" — An end to govern- 
ment by divine right — The lack of a national hope — 
Germans ready to make peace on basis of what they 
have done; Allies of what they hope to do — The fear of 
the coming accounting keeps peace from becoming an 
actuality. 

CHAPTER II. The Wae's Objectives as Ger- 

MAXY Sees Theji 18 

Germans living in the present — An official statement of 
the objectives as visualized in the Empire, approved by 
Zimmermann and read by Bethmann-Hollweg — "Germany 
fighting for existence" — "Seeks territorial changes only 
as safeguards to Germany's security" — "Allies frankly 
avow plans of conquest" — England accused of war of 
destruction — "Belgium to be safeguarded in safeguarding 
Germany" — "Commercial expansion to East required" — 
"English navalism, starving non-combatants and neutrals, 
a greater menace than German militarism" — ^"British 
fight to destroy Germany but talk of freedom" — "Ger- 
many wants no such freedom as England gives Ireland." 

CHAPTER III. "Peace with Honor" vs. A 

"German Peace" 29 

No definite peace plan in Germany — Peace-at-any- 
xiii 



CONTENTS 

PAGE 

price sentiment almost totally absent — Even Socialists 
want "peace with honor" — Some still hope for "German 
peace" — What that means — Little miderstanding of 
world-peace plans — The liberal wing, opposing ruthless 
U-boat campaign and seeking "peace witii honor," grow- 
ing in strength — This war fought for the House of Haps- 
burg — Germans believe England may hold Calais and 
that France may become a monarchy — Germans almost 
pity France, and are changing attitude toward England 
— France "bled white" they say, by England — Time fights 
for Allies, but the Germans are still firm. 

CHAPTER IV. Liberalizing Germany . . 39 

The old motto "siegen" replaced by a new: "durch- 
halten" — Kaiser Wilhelm reads signs of the times and 
approves liberalization — Fear that immediate democrati- 
zation would be hailed as victory by Allies — No dynastic 
overthrow planned — Germans hold to monarchical system 
— Excellenz Zimmermann, Foreign Secretary and strong 
man of the cabinet, discusses the impending change — 
Real body of reformation to come after war is over — 
Germany has outgrown its political swaddling-clothes — A 
Government directly responsible through the Reichstag 
to the people, planned — How the leaders in Germany 
view the change. 

CHAPTER V. The Spirit of the Belea- 
guered Empire • .57 

Germany sobered to-day — Calls herself a "beleaguered 
fortress" and establishes "Burgfriede" — ^Junkerthum vio- 
lates the political truce— Dream of German super-state 
forgotten — Necessity of tlie war doubted — Some conserv- 
atives prefer destruction of Germany to its democratiza- 
tion — Kaiser's prestige great — Censorship used to burke 
criticism — Germany's "reptile press" and her belief in 
the venality of foreign papers — The Jewish question — 
The women — Spread of autocratic Socialism — The strain 
of life in Germany to-day. 

xiv 



CONTENTS 

PAGE 

CHAPTER VI. German Hatred of America: 

Its Causes 70 

German hate for England expressed in fighting; that 
for America has no outlet — America held to blame for 
German reverses — Grounds for German hate: (1) Ex- 
port of mimitions; (2) British blockade, not stopped by 
America; (3) Interference with mails; (4) Commercial 
blacklist; (5) President Wilson's submarine doctrine — 
"American neutrality toward Germany is of the head; 
that toward the Allies is of the heart," says Jagow — Be- 
lief in loyalty of German-Americans to the Kaiser — 
American attaches barred from the front — Ambassador 
Gerard's retort to an official — Commercial hostility. 

CHAPTER VII. The Menace of the U-Boat 79 

Export of munitions declared legally right but morally 
wrong — Success of the German submarines — The internal 
crisis hinging on the submarine issue — Resumption of 
ruthless U-boat war inevitable unless peace comes soon 
— Strength of the opposition — What a diplomatic break 
would mean — The lesson of the U-53 — Estrangement 
heightened by difficulties of communication — The Paris 
Conference plans directed against the U. S.? — Will the 
hatred be permanent? 

CHAPTER VIII. Germany and the American 

President 91 

Wilson personifies America to Germany, so hate cen- 
ters on him — Ambassador Gerard shares the hostility 
though officials respect him — ^Yet Germany willing to 
accept Wilson as mediator — Germans favored Hughes 
because they wanted to punish Wilson — Harden the only 
German to praise Wilson. 

CHAPTER IX. America Through German 

Eyes 97 

How a pamphlet of enormous circulation treats of 
Americans — "In spirit genuine Englishmen" — "America 
XV 



CONTENTS 

PAGE 

fears Germany; that is why she hates her" — ^"America 
will be in economically advantageous position after the 
war" — "Puritanically hypocritical" — "Obsequious to Eng- 
lish Lords" — How an American writer did not get his 
name — "Monroe Doctrine has been despised by all the 
great powers except Germany" — How Germans view our 
Anglo-Saxon morality" — ^Why "republics must always 
fail" — "A tyranny of dollars" — "A history which tells of 
nothing but the lust for gain." 

CHAPTER X. Barking the Spies from the 

Empire 109 

Doors locked against travelers — ^Strangers closely ob- 
served — Investigations before Americans leave United 
States, on arrival in neutral country, and at the border 
— The search at the frontier — The eleven steps in pro- 
curing a passport to leave — The remarkably educated 
waiters in the foreigners' hotels — The telephone operator 
who took a taxi to the races — Spies watch Germany's 
allies too — German agents on the transatlantic liners — 
German mails via submarines to Spain; thence out un- 
censored. 

CHAPTER XI. The Hobgoblin of German 

Dumping 127 

Germany fosters combination — The necessity for in- 
ternal economic readjustment — Prohibition of emigration 
— Alfred Lohraann, father of the commercial U-boats, 
says Germany is in no condition to seek foreign markets 
— American exports and imports to and from Germany — 
Shipbuilding only obvious preparation for future, but 
reports exaggerated for foreign eflfect — American firms 
in Germany doing well — Lack of raw materials in Ger- 
many — Impairment of German credit. 

CHAPTER XII. Business Behind the Battle 

Line 138 

Central purchasing and distributing bureaus for food 
and other necessaries fundamental to Germany's present 
xvi 



CONTENTS 

PAGE 

economic organization — The Imperial Transition Commis- 
sion — Price dictation — No repudiation of debts expected 
— The German war loo.ns and how they are floated — 
"The strategy of the check-book" — Autocratic Socialism 
— Germany's national wealth and that of the Allies — 
Low rate of unemployment — Increased number of in- 
dustrial laborers— Production of iron — Freight revenues 
greater than in time of peace — ^The gold reserve in the 
Reichsbank — Loans floated at home — The rate of ex- 
change — The Reichsbank's watch on waste — Tlie Labor 
Dictatorship and the civilian army of woi*k — Operation 
of the "Man-Power" Act — The German idea of democ- 
racy — "Women to the front." 

CHAPTER XIII. Germany's Pantry: Feed- 
ing Seve:nty Millions 162 

Germany not starving — Organized to secure sufficient 
and equitable distribution — Prepared even if war last a 
decade — Present rations based on worst crop in twenty 
years — Easier to buy luxuries than necessaries — What is 
scarce — Living on the card system — The Central Pur- 
chasing Bureaus — Women and prisoners at work on the 
farms — The supply of meat — Present prices — Food in the 
hotels and restaurants — The crop of 1916 — Possibility of 
starvation past — The soup kitchens. 

CHAPTER XIV. Germany's Backbone: Her 

Army 178 

German belief in the invincibility of her armies — 
Grounds for German confidence — Military secrecy — Over 
half a million new soldiers every year — Her gross mili- 
tary strength — The German losses, temporary and perma- 
nent — The number of prisoners in Germany — Territory 
occupied — General Freytag-Loringhoven on the Somme 
campaign — French soldiers better than the English, he 
says — The impasse in the west — German desire for a 
"Bewegwuigs-krieg." 

xvii 



CONTENTS 

PAGE 

CHAPTER XV. On the Somme: Ordeal by 

Battle 195 

The soldiers in the front line — Courtesy among the 
aviators — "English have not won enough ground to bury 
their dead," says German general — German surprise at 
English acceptance of conscription — Drain on supplies — 
Pigeon posts — French villagers behind the front — "Their 
damned artillery makes it heU" — Von Papen, Boy-Ed, 
and Dernburg — Zeppelins and what their officers think 
of them — The German "American-eaters'" — The English 
hope: that if they cannot break the German line they 
may break the German heart. 

CHAPTER XVI. LuDENDOKFP, the Mysteky 

Man 209 

Hindenburg's right hand man — Ludendorff plans and 
Hindenburg decides — His inscrutability — Has never been 
interviewed — His fame in Germany — Simple origin — 
Predestined to be a soldier — Reserved as a child — Rapid 
advance in the array — His troops first to enter Lifege — 
Called to aid Hindenburg — The battles in the Masurian 
swamps — The steam roller in Poland — Second to Hin- 
denburg in command of aU the German armies — German 
confidence in him. 

CHAPTER XVII. Boelcke, Knight of the 

Air 226 

A hero among the Allies and among his own people — 
Brought down thirty-eight enemy machines before he 
was killed in collision with a German machine — Aerial 
chivalry — English take air-war as sport; Germans and 
French seriously — Boelcke never in America — The fight- 
ing detachment of the aeroplane corps — German team- 
work — Boelcke's fighting technique — British say German 
fliers hang back — How a war correspondent saved two 
lives — How a captured British flier viewed his confine- 
ment. 

xviii 



CONTENTS 

PAGE 

CHAPTER XVIII. Captive Belgium and 

Northern France 242 

Iron heel of conqueror not crushing people — German 
desire to make country self-supporting — Belgians pas- 
sive but French pride unbroken — The C. R. B. — Belgian 
unwillingness to work — 'More food in Belgium to-day 
than in Germany — Germans pay cash of national coinage 
— Hatred of the German in Lille awesome — But hatred 
cannot be kept at razor-edge everywhere — "The Ostend- 
Dover route — cheapest and quickest route to England" — 
Germans reducing Belgian illiteracy — German oflScers 
fear effects of retention of Belgium. 

CHAPTER XIX. Bleeding Poland and Her 

Neighbors 261 

Poland a no-man's land, left to die— Difficulties of 
relief work — The Jewish question — The child who spilled 
the family's soup — The work of the Rockefeller Relief 
Commission — Preserving the manhood of the prisoners — 
The menace of tuberculosis^ — Jewish destitution — Chil- 
dren too weak to learn to walk — German resentment 
against Americans hampers relief work — The Allies' re- 
fusal to aid relief on conditions acceptable to Germany 
— The new Polish Kingdom, the Polish army, and what 
they mean. 

CHAPTER XX. Germany's Back Door— Aus- 
tria-Hungary 276 

The Balkanzug from Berlin to Constantinople — Belief 
that war's decision will come in east — Polyglot Austria 
a millstone around Germany's neck — Hungarian strength 
a surprise — Bohemians accused of treachery — Viennese 
gaiety superficial — No parliament in Austria since the 
war began — The partition of Austria as predicted by a 
German — Nothing for Turkey — Francis Joseph's death 
and its significance — ^The new Emperor, Charles I — Aus- 
trian plans to prohibit further emigration and to force 
the return of emigrants now in the United States — 
xix 



CONTENTS 

PAGE 

Austria necessary to Germany — Strong men of the Dual 
Empire are Hungarians — No love lost between the two 
realms — Hungary has borne brunt of the war — Serbian 
conditions are bettered. 

CHAPTER XXI. Turkey and the Balkan 

Caldron 299 

Roumania's defection a bitter pill to Germany — Bal- 
kans the "powder-barrel of the world" — German propa- 
ganda in the Balkans — Allies help it in Greece — ^Turkey 
fighting with an ally she dislikes for a future she fears — 
Turco-German alliance selfish on both sides — Germans 
indifferent to Turkish fate — Vivid word-picture drawn 
by American in Turkey — Tells of economic weakness — 
Of beggars who beg in all languages — That "something" 
may happen to Enver Bey — Of the coolness toward the 
Germans — Of the scarcity and price of foods. 

CHAPTER XXII. The Neutrals and How 

America Makes Them Possible .... 315 

Neutrals "damned if they do and damned if they 
don't" — Germans believe that were it not for American 
neutrality that of the smaller nations would have become 
impossible — Greece starved into submission by the Allies 
— The countries at war, in war, and neutral — Sweden the 
only pro-German neutral — Change in Dutch sentiment — 
Spanish feeling mixed — Swiss think first of their own 
country — Neutrals resent illegal blockade and mail seiz- 
ures and believe the United States could stop them — 
Norway may enter the war — Neutral sympathy with the 
Allies a blow to German vanity — How Britain regulates 
neutral trade, and how Sweden defied her — Neutrals 
warm friends of peace. 

CHAPTER XXIII. Leaves from a Reporter's 

Note-Book 330 

Young men all at war — The pathetic cab-horses — 
Electrified taxis — Laughless Germany — Watery beer — 

XX 



CONTENTS 

PAGE 

The Germans have an "Ersatz" for everything but men 
— Pleasures taken seriously — Dancing verboten — lEcon- 
omy in uniforms — Meat "speak-easies" — "Horse mack- 
erel" in disguise — All dogs at work — Potatoes on the 
corner-lot — Crossing the North Sea — ^Weighting flour 
tickets — Changes in newspapers — Housewives instructed 
when to put up preserves — Saving rags and old paper — 
Restrictions on communication — Women school-teachers 
— "Vienna styles" made in Paris — Selling war helmets — 
Protective coloration in uniforms — Interned civilians — 
Commandeering the rubber stock — Which boys can ride 
bicycles — American shells — ^Germany's big men and how 
she regards them. 

INDEX 361 



sxi 



LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS 

PAGE 

James W. Gerard, Ambassador at Berlin Frontispiece " 

Bethmann-HoUweg, German Chancellor . . .23"^ 

Dr. Alfred Zimmermann, German Minister of For- 
eign Affairs 47*^ 

Kaiser Wilhelm 61 

Von Jagow, Ex-German Minister of Foreign Af- 
fairs 83' 

Dr. Alfred Lohmann 131" 

Dr. Karl Helfferich, Secretary of State for the 

Interior 145'^ 

General von Hindenburg 185' 

General von Mackensen 20V 

General von Ludendorff 215 

Boelcke 231^^ 

General von Bissing, Governor General of Belgium 251" 

Karl I, Emperor of Austria 279' 

Count Stefan Tisza of Hungary, Prime Minister . 293 

Ferdinand I, King of the Bulgarians .... 305" 

General von Falkenhayn 343-^ 



INSIDE THE GERMAN 
EMPIRE 



INSIDE THE GERMAN 
EMPIRE 

CHAPTER I 

THE FOUR WAYS TOWARD PEACE 

Prospect of immediate peace small — Unwillingness to guarantee re- 
establishment of Belgium or to re-cede Alsace-Lorraine — Four 
ways out seen: (1) By complete defeat of Allies; (2) By com- 
plete defeat of Germany; (3) By compromise; (4) By liberal- 
ization of German Empire — First two not seriously considered 
— Hope of Russian defection to German side — Germany-Rus- 
sia-Japau: a "Dreibund of discontent" — An end to government 
by divine right — ^The lack of a national hope — Germans ready 
to make peace on basis of what they have done ; Allies of what 
they hope to do — The fear of the coming accounting keeps 
peace from becoming an actuality. 

The desire for peace is strong in Germany, 
but from top to bottom there is no belief that it 
is near. German hopes and expectations of the 
end are indefinite as to time ; the most optimistic 
can see no real prospects within another two 
years, and from that period the conjectures run 
up to ten years. And in their economic and mili- 
tary planning the Kaiser's subjects are prepar- 



INSIDE THE GERMAN EMPIRE 

ing to enact their motto of durchhalten (stick it 
out) for years to come. 

A striking illustration of the lack of considera- 
tion given to the idea of any peace but one 
"wholly satisfactory to Germany's national as- 
pirations" is the diplomatic secret that in 1915 
and the first half of 1916 no fewer than eleven 
separate interrogatories were submitted to the 
German Government as to Belgium. The ques- 
tion has been asked by the United States, Spain, 
Denmark, Holland, Sweden, Switzerland, Nor- 
way, and other neutrals if Germany will give a 
formal assurance of the restoration of Belgian 
entity at the end of the war; but not once has 
this assurance been given, nor has the Govern- 
ment, in its most affable moments, permitted 
even inferentially the idea to gain ground that 
it regarded Belgium's reestablishment according 
to the status quo ante as an absolutely essential 
condition of peace. 

While it is reasonably certain that the prepon- 
derance of enlightened German opinion favors 
the reestablishment of Belgium, nevertheless in 
a statement I prepared for submission to the 
Chancellor regarding the objectives of the war 

4 



THE FOUR WAYS TOWARD PEACE 

(to which I shall refer again) the suggestion 
that Belgium would be reestablished within her 
old lines was carefully blue-penciled by an offi- 
cial acting for the Chancellor. The explana- 
tion was made that Belgium was, as Kaiser Wil- 
helm I said in a letter to his empress, a point of 
weakness in the empire's rear and flank. There- 
fore Germany must be safeguarded against this 
danger. 

At the same time, so runs the German reason- 
ing, the securance of German safety means the 
securance of Belgium's welfare. Obviously, this 
logic would lead to the conclusion that Belgium's 
greatest secm-ity against the world would be 
found in being a German state ; and if she is or is 
not to take on such a condition is precisely the 
question that Germany will not answer. It is 
true that the sentiment against annexation in the 
empire is deeper than the sentiment favoring 
such a development, but even the anti-annexa- 
tionists agree that certain changes in boundaries 
must be made or certain places taken as hostage 
before Germany can feel secure. 

As neutral opinion is undivided in its agree- 
ment with the Allies' proclamation that Belgium 

5 



INSIDE THE GERMAN EMPIRE 

must be fully restored, and as the restoration is 
regarded as an absolute essential to peace, it can 
be seen how far from peace Germany is holding 
herself. 

In addition, France has stated through Briand, 
and England and the other AlHes have accepted 
the doctrine, that the irreducible minimum of 
her peace terms is the acquisition of Alsace-Lor- 
raine. Against this Germany to a man — and 
woman — stands opposed with all her soul. 
"Never," say the Germans to this proposition, 
"while we have life left as a nation. If peace 
can come to us on no other terms, then peace will 
never come so long as one German is left alive." 
And the vehemence of their assertion leaves no 
doubt as to their sincerity.. They* rage at the 
idea. " We shall never surrender the Reichs- 
land," the Germans say in substance. "If the 
Allies want the provinces, let them take them. 
Then they can talk of keeping them; but now, 
with all of Belgium and a large share of France 
in our hands, it is laughable to talk of such a 
thing." 

Thus at the very outset there are seemingly 
insurmountable obstacles to peace. How they 

e 



THE FOUR WAYS TOWARD PEACE 

were to be removed was a subject I could bring 
Germans high or low to talk of only with dif- 
ficulty. It is one that they do not let them- 
selves think about often for fear the outlook 
may take on an even darker hue than it now 
wears. 

For they do not delude themselves in Ger- 
man}^, they do not underestimate the danger of 
their position ; they know how terrific is the battle 
being waged against them, and they know, too, 
that if it is carried to the end, they must lose. 
They realize this, but they hope that this end 
may be averted. How this can be they are not 
sure, for slowly they are realizing that the Allies 
have no thought of quitting. 

The logicians in Germany, who are now for 
the first time shaking off the influence of their 
personal interest in the outcome and are able to 
examine the peace thesis objectively, have re- 
duced the subject to four propositions: Peace 
can come, they declare: 

First, through the complete defeat of the Allies 
by Germany. 

Second, through the complete defeat of Ger- 
many by the Allies. 



INSIDE THE GERMAN EMPIRE 

Third, through a compromise, and a return in 
effect to the status quo ante. 

Fourth, through the liberahzation of the Ger- 
man Empire. 

In that fourth proposition Hes the most as- 
tounding development of the two years of war, 
and the touch-stone that may yet bring order to 
chaotic Europe. 

But to take up the hypotheses in turn. 

First, Germany to-day nourishes no hope that 
she can conquer the world — and that is her con- 
ception of the task she faces. She might be able 
to accomplish even this titanic labor, her sons 
say, if she could only bring the war to England. 
But the North Sea and the British fleet make that 
impossible, so she has abandoned calculations on 
this contingency. 

Second, convinced as she is that she cannot con- 
quer, she is doubly certain that she cannot and 
shall not be conquered. To her people defeat 
means national extermination, and they are fight- 
ing magnificently because they are fighting for 
life. Their reasoners say that if peace cannot 
be adduced from the first proposition, it can 
never be from the second, short of annihilation, 

8 



THE FOUR WAYS TOWARD PEACE 

Third — and this is still a favorite topic of dis- 
cussion, although in the face of Asquith's, Lloyd 
George's, and Briand's solemn statements it is 
almost hoping against hope — peace through com- 
promise is still held to be a possibility. Perhaps 
not a likely one if the alinement of the Allies re- 
mains undisturbed, for then the Germans fear 
no consideration would be paid to the suggestion 
of a throwback to former conditions. 

But what if the alliance of these against us be 
broken? the Germans ask. What if Russia 
should turn from enemy into friend? they add. 
The statesmen of Germany regard this as a con- 
tingency graced by hope. Not a word do the 
censors permit to get out on this subject, not a 
chance does the Government fail to use to deny 
the possibility ; but despite these subterfuges it is 
an open secret in German official circles that pos- 
sible Russian defection from the alliance is a 
grave factor in the life and death struggle Ger- 
many is waging. 

The diplomatic play had been carried so far 
that in September, 1916, there was a meeting in 
Stockliolm between secret emissaries from Rus- 
sia and Germany to confer over the prospects 



INSIDE THE GERMAN EMPIRE 

and plan further efforts. In fact, matters had 
progressed to such a degree that one of the best- 
known American correspondents in Europe held 
himself in readiness, on secret information he had 
received, to go to the Swedish capital in the ex- 
pectation that matters had progressed to such an 
extent that publicity might follow. The meet- 
ing did not reach that point, but the work goes 
on. 

There has always been a very strong German 
influence in Russia, and one that which, Ger- 
mans believe, can grow stronger at Germany's 
will; all that is needed is a reduced insistence 
upon Austrian hegemony in the Balkans and a 
lesser friendliness to Turkey and Turkish reten- 
tion of European soil. 

And as to Russia, apart from what Germany 
has to give her, as the Germans see it, she is to- 
day in the role of having everything to lose and 
nothing to gain. Even if the Czar should get 
Constantinople, what has he then but an empty 
thing? the Germans ask ; and they add : As long 
as Britain holds Gibraltar and the Isthmus of 
Suez, Russia's possession of Constantinople as a 
real warm-water port would be a nonentity, since 

10 



THE FOUR WAYS TOWARD PEACE 

all she would have is merely a harbor on a lake 
(the Mediterranean) to which entrance and exit 
are held by another power which can close them 
at will. 

Russia's future lies in near and central Asia, 
her dreams of world trade through efficient har- 
borage can be realized only in the Persian Gulf, 
so runs the German foreign policy; and it goes 
on to say that Germany's future in Asia can 
easily be reconciled to that of Russia through her 
long-cherished plan of gaining the commercial 
and political ascendancy in Petrograd, and di- 
recting the exploitation and development of the 
Russian trade, which is just throwing off its 
swaddling-clothes. 

Russia is the German hope, Italy the German 
disappointment in the war. How far this hope 
will materialize cannot yet be said; but the hope 
is vital and one that is being freely mentioned 
in private official discussions. And if nothing 
should come of it at this time, it will reappear at 
the end of the war, if there be a Germany left to 
call it forth again, when the Germans see them- 
selves allied with Russia against the world. 

When the Germans talk of a new alinement of 

11 ^ 



INSIDE THE GERMAN EMPIRE 

the world powers, and speak of Russia as fight- 
ing with them, they talk also of Japan as their 
accessory. The political censors permit no un- 
kind word to be said about Japan. On the con- 
trary, such references as have been made have 
always brought out the fact that Japan is now 
assuming a negative position in the war. 

It is an accepted belief in Germany that Japan 
and Russia have reconciled their differences, and 
that their futures are bound together, and to this 
future there are many Germans who believe their 
country will be a contributory factor. 

Many of the German intellectuals, and other 
leaders, such as Professor Delbrueck, Alfred 
Lohmann, Herr Ballin, and others, who have 
always stood for a rapprochement with England, 
now believe that such a course will be impossible 
for many years to come, and that therefore Ger- 
many will be forced into an alliance, for military 
and commercial reasons, with two nations with 
which she has little of common cultural interest. 
As one leader of German thought phrased it to 
me, an alliance between Germany, Russia, and 
Japan will be a ^'Dreibund of discontent." But 
from such an alliance they see great possibihties 



THE FOUR WAYS TOWARD PEACE 

in that Germany will contribute leadership and 
system, Russia resources and power, and Japan 
adaptability and bold enterprise. 

In a sly way some of those now advocating 
the ruthless Lusitania type of submarine war- 
fare, which admittedly is aimed primarily at 
the United States, believe that their advocacy of 
this course is a support to the Russo-Japanese 
coalition, basing their belief on the hostility they 
fancy exists between America and Japan. 

Furthermore, they accept the dictum of Tirpitz 
that sooner or later Germany must fight against 
the " Anglo- Amerikanerthum," and against such 
an alliance they believe that Russia and Japan 
also must fight. 

The fourth way out, the liberalization of the 
German Empire, is the avenue most likely to be 
traveled by the peacemakers. It is a subject that 
Germans speak of with reluctance. To most of 
them it is a reform to be avoided at this time, 
not because it lacks virtue, — except for a few, 
all I spoke with welcomed the thought, — but be- 
cause it would seem to be forced upon them by 
the Allies, and would therefore, if instituted, take 
on the nature of an Allied victory. 

13 



INSIDE THE GERMAN EMPIRE 

When they do speak of this change they al- 
ways preface their words with a statement that 
it is to come after the war ; but from expressions 
made to me by the most influential men in Ger- 
many, supported by indirect statements from the 
highest in the land, it is safe to say that the 
element of time is not unchangeable, and that be- 
fore long the agitation for the erection of a re- 
sponsible popular govermnent will break out, 
and will lead to an end of that government by 
divine right which now exists, wherein the Chan- 
cellor is responsible not to the Reichstag, but 
only to the Kaiser, and the Kaiser owes responsi- 
bility, he says, only to his God and his conscience. 

Germany, as Hindenburg has said, has a bril- 
liant military position, but is without prospects. 
He might have added that to-day desperation 
finds more room in her heart than hope finds 
lodging there ; for bold, courageous, unflinching, 
determined as the Germans are, there is little 
hope to feed upon in the face of the Allies' plod- 
ding insistence in fighting on long after the Ger- 
man military experts had assured their people 
that strategically^ and tactically the enemies' 
plans were futile and unsound. 

14 



THE FOUR WAYS TOWARD PEACE 

And this lack of a national hope is accentuated 
when the Germans consider the fii'st two of the 
four ways out. Such hopes as still remain of an 
outcome that lies elsewhere than in the conquer- 
ing of Germany by the Allies or the defeat of the 
Alhes by Germany are to be found in compro- 
mise or in liberalization. 

It is difficult for an observer in Germany to 
see how any peace not of her own making can 
come except by an overwhelming military vic- 
tory for the Allies. The internal conditions, 
whatever the indications for the future may be, 
are to-day well in the hand of the Government. 
The Germans accept absolutely the dicta of 
Clausewitz, Frobenius, and Treitschke that the 
power of the state is to be measured by its mili- 
tary strength, and since the military power of 
the central empires is not yet seriously shaken, 
whatever the promise of to-morrow may be, the 
thought of a peace forced upon them from with- 
out finds no place in the Teutonic mind. It can 
be said axiomatically that Germany to-day does 
not believe peace so necessary as to cause her to 
make a cession of any of her territory. She is 
willing to make peace on the basis of what she 

15 



INSIDE THE GERMAN EMPIRE 

has done in the two years of the war. The Alhes 
are wiUing to make peace only on the basis of 
what they expect to do in the years to come. 

Germany to-day would be happy to make a 
peace that has as its foundation a return to the 
conditions prevailing before the war, with certain 
reservations regarding Belgium, Poland, Serbia, 
and now Rumania. The Allies demand, on the 
basis of a victory they have not yet won, the 
restoration and indenmification of Belgium, the 
cession of Prussian Poland, the reestablishment 
and indemnification of Serbia, and the surrender 
of Constantinople, Trieste, and the Trentino. 

The great gulf separating these two sets of 
demands is even wider than appears upon first 
glance, for there are on both sides considerations 
of grim importance which bar the way to com- 
promise. These are the fears of the accounting 
that all the governments must give their peoples 
if, upon the conclusion of the war, their respec- 
tive countries are worse off than when the war 
began. The great question, "Why did you bring 
us into the war?" is one that those who suffer 
defeat will find it hard to answer. That is one 
significant reason why Germany would prefer 

16 



THE FOUR WAYS TOWARD PEACE 

to go down with all flags flying than to accept 
a peace that would spell internal dissatisfaction. 
It is this question that has kept peace from 
becoming an actualitj^; each of the nations is 
seeking to create for itself more favorable con- 
ditions for peace before it runs the hazard of the 
accounting that has to come. 



17 



CHAPTER II 

THE war's objectives AS GERMANY SEES THEM 

Germans living in the present — An official statement of the objec- 
tives as visualized in the Empire, approved by Zimmermann 
and read by Bethmann-Hollweg — "Germany fighting for exist- 
ence" — '"Seeks territorial changes only as safeguards to Ger- 
many's security" — ^"Allies frankly avow plans of conquest" — 
England accused of war of destruction — "Belgium to be safe- 
guarded in safeguarding Germany" — "Commercial expansion to 
East required" — "English navalism, starving non-combatants 
and neutrals, a greater menace than German militarism" — 
"British fight to destroy Germany but talk of freedom" — 
"Germany wants no such freedom as England gives Ireland." 

Because the future looks so black, because the 
situation is so muddled, because doubt and con- 
jecture attend every theory the Germans are 
building for themselves to-day, they are perhaps 
more than any other of the belligerents living in 
the present, disregarding possibilities and deal- 
ing with actualities. They await a lightning- 
stroke that shall cleave the dark cloud and reveal 
a brighter prospect ; and while they wait they are 
attempting to formulate the immediate objec- 
tives of the war as they visualize them and as they 
read them into their enemies' plan. 

18 



THE WAR'S OBJECTIVES 

I prepared a statement of these objectives 
after getting expressions from various members 
of the Government, including views that the 
Chancellor himself gave. I submitted the paper 
to Bethmann-Hollweg through Dr. Alfred Zim- 
mermann, then chief permanent under-secretary 
of state for foreign affairs. It represents the of- 
ficial attitude of Germany. The form in which 
it is herewith presented was taken on after re- 
vision and correction by the Foreign Office, and 
when Zimmermann returned it to me, after the 
Chancellor had seen it, he gave it his entire per- 
sonal as well as official approbation. It was pre- 
pared just before the Chancellor's speech in the 
Reichstag on September 28, and a striking simi- 
larity will be noticed between the substance of 
certain phrases of this statement and the Chan- 
cellor's official utterances. It reads: 

There is at this moment in Germany no talk of peace. 
There are thoughts of peace — of peace with honor that 
shall secure to the empire the place that she occupied 
before the great war, and that shall secure, further, the 
avenues of national growth and commercial expansion 
to which her sons believe her entitled, and to gain which 
they are making the great sacrifice. But these peace 

19 



INSIDE THE GERMAN EMPIRE 

thoughts are rarely given voice now — first, because the 
nation is too busy making war, and, second, the nation 
feels that before peace can be talked there must be 
some one to talk to about it — and the Germans are not 
deluding themselves that at this time the Allies are 
ready or willing to listen. 

So, leaving the questions of peace to be settled at the 
green table and the causes of the war to be weighed by 
later historians, a statement can be made as to the 
actual objectives, an answer can be given to the ques- 
tion, "Why do the nations fight — what military and po- 
litical goals are the belligerents striving to reach?" 

There should be no doubt in the minds of the neutral 
world or in the minds of the nations allied against us 
as to what Germany is fighting for. It can be reduced 
to a one-word formula, existence. And because it is an 
appeal to the first law of nature, self-preservation, the 
German people are fighting so nobly and successfully 
and unconquerably. The devotion and patriotism of 
the Germans are traditional, but there is more than 
these sentiments holding the nation together ; it is the 
great elemental force — the will to live — against which 
nothing can prevail until the last German is destroyed. 
For every German realizes that it is not only his own 
existence which is being threatened, but the right and 
privilege of his children to live as Germans and to nur- 
ture and develop the ideals of their heritage. 

Germany is seeking no territory through conquest. 
She is not carrying a sword in one hand and her culture 

20 



THE WAR'S OBJECTIVES 

in the other, giving the world the choice between the 
two, as her enemies so frequently paint her. It never 
was a part of the plan of the war to add to Germany's 
territory through conquest, but it is possible that peace 
may necessitate a change of present boundaries of con- 
tiguous countries where such changes are in the nature 
of a safeguard to Germany's security, which in turn 
means a strengthening of the prospects of general and 
lasting peace. She is quite content to live peacefully, 
developing her own institutions and asking only that 
no artificial barriers originating in fear or jealousy be 
placed around her. The right to live carries with it a 
corollary in the right to grow, and both these rights 
are now being fought for by us against those who would 
deny them to us. 

However acute, albeit imaginary, may have been the 
fears of those who at the outset of the war saw in 
Germany only a desire for conquest, they must now be 
reassured by the solemn assertions of the German na- 
tion, taken in consideration with the present situation, 
where the greater part of Belgium, a large portion of 
France and a good share of Poland are in our hands. 
And still we say that we do not fight for territory. 
Annexation by conquest is no part of the German war. 
The lands we hold — the war-won gains — may be used 
as bases for later operations of a different nature, but 
they were not fought for nor won through a desire to 
possess them. 

Once more — Germany is not fighting a war for con- 

21 



INSIDE THE GERMAN EMPIRE 

quest. Can the others say as much? France pubHcly 
declares her intention of possessing Alsace-Lorraine; 
Russia is bent upon seizing European Turkey ; Italy 
demands a part of the Austro-Hungarian realm ; Rou- 
mania too has covetous eyes fixed upon our ally's land ; 
in short, all of the Allies are similarly actuated, while 
England's aims are the most monstrous of all — she is 
bent upon crushing Germany wholly and wiping her 
from the face of the earth. England is too fiendishly 
clever and her aims are too gigantic to reduce them to 
words. By every foul means this "friend of the little 
peoples" is seeking to force them to take arms against 
us. For their good.^ let me ask, or is it the time- 
honored tradition of England to have others pull the 
chestnuts out of the fire for her.'' 

As we see it, Germany is fighting for existence while 
the Allies are waging a war of conquest and in the case 
of England a war of extermination. Carthage was de- 
stroyed but history shows but few other instances of 
succesful wars of destruction, and Germany will not be 
added to the list. Her sons will not permit it and I am 
sure that the rest of the world would not countenance 
it. German ideals, German scholarship and German 
character have done too much for the world to be re- 
warded with such ingratitude. 

Even with Belgium a danger point in our back and 
flank there is no real desire in Germany to possess her 
land. We are anxious only for such a disposition of 
her future as will safeguard us, and it must always be 

^2 





^^ma^i^m^/T/^ 



THE WAR'S OBJECTIVES 

borne in mind that in safeguarding us Belgium will 
herself be safeguarded. How Belgium's integrity and 
safety, which means our safety too, may be obtained is 
a problem not included in this discussion, but it will 
be worked out. 

We ask and fight for the right to live, and to earn 
our living we must have room for commercial ex- 
pansion. England's domination of the sea has closed 
that highroad against us or made it subject to her con- 
trol, so we have worked out lines of development to the 
south and east — through the Balkans into Asia. And 
in that direction too they are trying to close the door 
in our face, although it is the only door left us leading 
to an opportunity to expand where the expansion does 
not militate against the political interests of others. 
It is plainly jealousy of our commercial ability and not 
political principles that motivates the attempt to shut 
us out from our just deserts in what was practically 
a virgin field. 

How fast the door to the sea was closed at the will 
of England is being shown to-day when she, being able 
to do so, is seeking to starve our women and children. 
And she is making the threat of starvation, if not 
actually carrying it out, against the European neutrals 
which are seeking only to maintain their regular, do- 
mestically-originating commerce with us. The threat 
to the world of German militarism was a chimera con- 
jured up by fevered minds; the actual menace and 
destructiveness of England's "navalism" is plainly ap- 

25 



INSIDE THE GERMAN EMPIRE 

parent to and felt by all the world, and by no means 
the least of those seeing and feeling this strangling, 
killing power is America. Perhaps the United States 
are powerful enough to resist this pressure in so far 
as it is applied to force them into war, but it is smash- 
ing and will further smash their commerce, while the 
pressure upon the smaller nations is so great that to 
keep themselves from starving they must bend to the 
will of the dictator of the sea. Look at Greece, at 
Holland, at Denmark, Norway and especially Sweden. 
What share can these smaller countries have in Eng- 
land's objectives in this war, except as England can 
force them to help her fight for her own aims ? 

The German people know why they are fighting. Do 
the English .? Will their Government still dare to tell 
them they are fighting for the return of Belgium to the 
Belgians.'' Germany has never had designs on Belgian 
territory, so that plea falls and with it falls the mask, 
revealing what England has never dared to admit — 
that she is fighting to encompass the destruction of 
Germany and the reduction of the Germans to a tribu- 
tary and secondary nation. That will never he so long 
as one German man or woman is left alive. That Eng- 
land realizes this as axiomatic js seemingly shown by 
the fact that she has systematically set about murder- 
ing our non-combatants by starvation, but this too will 
fail however deliberate and calculating that evil intent 
may be. 

We have heard much of the war for freedom and 
£6 



THE WAR'S OBJECTIVES 

liberty and democracy, and similar phrases. For whom 
are England and her allies fighting this war of freedom? 
Germany is not seeking to extend her system to other 
lands, so the fight cannot be for them. Are we then 
to suppose that among England's objective is to "free" 
Germany.'' Is she waging a war of freedom for the 
German people.'' Perhaps the same sort of "freedom" 
that France threw off; the same sort of freedom that 
the American colonies ended by the Revolutionary 
War ; the same sort of "freedom" she brought to India ; 
the same sort of "freedom" that made her fight for the 
gold and diamond mines of the quiet, peace-loving Boer 
republics; in short, the same sort of "freedom" she is 
giving to Ireland at the point of a gun and with the 
edge of a sword. Let America but ask herself the 
question you have asked me: "For what are Germany 
and the others fighting.'"' and she will soon perceive, if 
the question be honestly answered, in which hearts the 
lust of aggression lies and from whence comes the spirit 
of destruction. 

Germany to-day is without a definite peace 
plan. That is why the members of the Govern- 
ment consented to a statement as to the objec- 
tives, but made taboo any theorizing as to peace. 
There was a reahzation that Germany, fighting 
defensively, was not fighting constructively, ex- 
cept in so far as she was fighting for her national 

27 



INSIDE THE GERMAN EMPIRE 

existence, and except in so far as this war might 
effectuate a new political freedom within the em- 
pire. Obviously, both of these clauses were ones 
about which official tongues were not ready to 
wag too freely. 



28 



CHAPTER III 

* 'peace with honor" vs. a "GERMAN PEACE" 

No definite peace plan in Germany — Peace-at-any-price sentiment 
almost totally absent — Even Socialists want "peace with honor" 
— Some still hope for "German peace" — What that means — 
Little understanding of world-peace plans — The liberal wing, 
opposing ruthless U-boat campaign and seeking "peace with 
honor" growing in strength — This war fought for the House of 
Hapsburg — Germans believe England may hold Calais and that 
France may become a monarchy — Germans almost pity France, 
and are changing attitude toward England — France "bled 
white," they say, by England— Time fights for Allies, but the 
Germans are still firm. 

Peace is still a favorite subject for the Social 
Democrats, but it is always vague generalities 
with which they deal — an "Elirenvolle Friede" 
(peace with honor) is what they call it — but how 
it will come about or what form it will take no 
one since Liebknecht has dared to say. Lieb- 
knecht's sentiments were largely those of a peace- 
at-any-price man, he being a strong Interna- 
tionalist willing to accept any conditions that 
might bring about the possibility of resuming 
the class struggle. 

29 



INSIDE THE GERMAN EMPIRE 

Even in the extreme wings of the working- 
men's party or among the most radical Sociahsts 
there is httle or no sentiment supporting a peace 
at any price. All the views of these factions are 
predicated upon a continuation of the present 
German entity. I could discover no disintegra- 
tion of the spirit of nationalism. No matter how 
they may differ on the method of conducting the 
war or as to the terms of an eventual peace, no 
matter what criticisms they had to make among 
themselves, all of the eighteen and more political 
parties with which Germany is cursed are stiff- 
necked and unyielding in their determination to 
fight to the end for Germany. 

There are those in the empire who even at this 
day are firmty convinced that Germany will yet 
win an overwhelming victory and establish a 
"German peace." Professor von Stengel, whose 
name is widely known in Germany, when asked 
whether he believed the empire would participate 
in future international conferences at The 
Hague, gave "No" as his answer. He said that 
such conferences would be unnecessary under a 
"German peace," which he defined as a sort of 
super-state in which Germans would enforce 

30 



"PEACE WITH HONOR" 

order in the world. "The one condition of pros- 
perous existence, especially for the neutrals," he 
said, "is submission to our supreme direction. 
Under our overlordship all international law 
would become superfluous, for we of ourselves 
and instinctively give to each one his rights." 
Professor von Stengel is considered a great au- 
thority on international law and is credited with 
a close friendship with the royal house. It 
should be said that his views, while giving intense 
satisfaction to the Junkerthum, find no echo in 
official circles. 

There is in Germany little knowledge and less 
sympathy of and for the plan of universal dis- 
armament or of peace-enforcing leagues. This 
propaganda has made little headway among the 
Teutons. It was never given official recognition 
until the Chancellor's speech in the Reichstag in 
November. The Germans say that they want 
the end of the war to bring about conditions 
deeper and more lasting than those supplied by 
changes in frontiers or diplomatic phrases in 
treaties, but they have no formula to offer as to 
how this world betterment and peace be brought 
about, and it cannot be said that the censors are 

31 



INSIDE THE GERMAN EMPIRE 

especially desirous of permitting these lines of 
thought to be followed. For example, Dr. Al- 
fred Fried's book, "The Restoration of Europe," 
which has been translated from the German by 
Lewis Gannett, and which goes to the very root 
of these questions, is prohibited from being cir- 
culated in Germany. Dr. Fried, who was the 
winner of the Nobel peace prize in 1911, and is 
reckoned one of the great thinkers of the present 
day, has had to take up his residence in Bern. 
The main line of cleavage between the two 
dominant factions in Germany is to be found in 
the difference between "a peace with honor" and 
a "German peace." In the first class are counted 
the Social Democrats and the liberal thinkers 
generally, including the Chancellor, Zimmer- 
mann, Dr. Helfferich, secretary of state for the 
interior, and Dr. Solf, secretary of state for the 
colonies. In the second class are to be found 
the Conservatives and the National Liberals, 
who, under the leadership of Bassermann and 
Stresemann, are representative of the reaction- 
ary influence in the empire and are closely allied 
with the old-school Conservatives. They want 
Germany to dominate the world, they want Bel- 

S2 



"PEACE WITH HONOR" 

gium retained, they want portions of France 
held, they want Serbia wiped out of existence, 
they want a large slice of Russia added to the 
Kaiser's dominions, and want also the resump- 
tion of a ruthless U-boat campaign, pretending 
to believe that this course offers a sure way to a 
quick end and certain victory. 

The reasonables — they are few in number — 
hold with a certain school of thought among the 
neutrals, that the best interests of the world in 
general will be served by a negative outcome to 
the war — a draw. They argue that compromise 
is the chief characteristic of the Zeitgeist; that 
with nations as with men life is a series of com- 
promises, and that bearance and forbearance are 
the basis of amity. Out of the draw they can 
see grow the beginnings of a world confederation 
which shall have the supreme handling of inter- 
national matters. 

This sentiment is growing slowly among Ger- 
mans. It will receive its major impetus when 
the empire's internal politics undergo hberaliza- 
tion. And that brings us again to the fourth 
way out — liberalization. 

The disciples of this idea agree among them- 

33 



INSIDE THE GERMAN EMPIRE 

selves that in large part the present conflict is a 
war for the House of Hapsburg, and this they 
resent. The Austro-Hungarian Empire is a 
political anomaly, scarcely able to hold its con- 
stituent members in check. Historians have 
called Austria the miracle of Europe, because 
though in the last two hundred years she has been 
seemingly worsted in almost every war, yet upon 
each peace, or soon thereafter, frequently she has 
emerged with territorial accessions. It is feared 
in Germany that this time she will not be so 
fortunate. It is Austrian weakness that causes 
Germany to look to Petrograd for future aid in 
the Balkans, although there is an appreciation of 
the real importance of Hungary. 

It is urged in Germany that, on the principle 
that the quickest way to bring peace is to make 
vigorous war, a new offensive against Russia 
should drive the German lines deep into the 
Czar's dominions. This is a part of the plan to 
bring about a peace with Russia, after which a 
new alliance may come about. 

There is a strong belief in Germany, which 
has its base apart from the resentment against 
England, that the English will never quit Calais. 

S4s 



"PEACE WITH HONOR" 

Great Britain fought for it many years, say 
the Germans — fought for it on the fields of 
Crecy and Agincourt in Picardy, where the 
fighting is now heaviest, and now that she has 
it, why should she give it up? Thus runs the 
characteristic German reasoning, and there are 
many who accept it. And there are many, too, 
who believe that France, which is suffering deeply 
through the war, will change her form of govern- 
ment at the end of the conflict and turn again into 
a monarchy. The complacent German ground 
for this theory is the fact that Germany has de- 
monstrated the superior efficiency of the mon- 
archical system over the loose republicanism 
which the Kaiser's subjects see in France. 

The feeling toward France to-day is changed 
little from the sentiment I found in Germany 
two years ago. It is one of conciliation, of ad- 
miration, ahnost of sympathy and pity. The 
feeling toward England has changed from bitter 
resentment to a feeling not unmixed with ad- 
miration for the way she is fighting. It was 
firmly believed in Germany that the British Em- 
pire was in the process of disintegration, and that 
the disaffections in Ireland, Egypt, India, and 

35 



INSIDE THE GERMAN EMPIRE 

South Africa marked the beginning of the end 
of the great empire. And the Germans felt that 
military conscription would be the climax. To 
their overwhelming surprise, England accepted 
conscription, and the empire has become unified 
in a way that provokes the amazement of even 
the most pronounced Anglophobes. 

By way of showing the thorough accord ex- 
isting between the Government and the various 
political parties on the question of peace, and 
illustrating the fact that the Government is to- 
day getting its main support from the Social 
Democrats, an organization usually opposed to 
all that autocracy stands for, an excerpt from 
the platform of the Social Democrats, led by 
Scheidemann, reads as follows: 

Germany has renounced all plans of conquest and 
merely wishes to safeguard her political independence, 
her territorial integrity, and freedom for economic 
development. The fact that Italy and Roumanla have 
joined her enemies will not make much difference to Ger- 
many, although it is to be regretted because it will not 
improve the chances for an early peace. 

The similarity between Scheidemann's statement 
and that authorized by the Foreign Office will 

36 



"PEACE WITH HONOR" 

be noticed. Franz Mehring, one of the radical 
Socialists, recently repudiated any "peace of 
defeat." 

Geimany believes to-day that England alone 
stands in the way of peace. She ignores France, 
which she considers to have been "bled white." 
She pretends to believe that France is ready to 
take peace at almost any price, and yet I can 
say on the highest authority in the United States 
that in the middle of 1916, after England had 
virtually stood aside, willing to await develop- 
ments, it was France and France alone that ob- 
jected with all her might to any attempt being 
made to lead to a discussion of peace. 

The Foreign Office believes that the peace sen- 
timent is gaining ground in Russia, the evidence 
being supplied in the recent speeches and writ- 
ings of M. Bulatzel, a prominent member of the 
Duma, a leader of the extreme Right, and editor 
of a political journal, who urges a break with 
England and insists that Russia should have the 
right to make peace when she can do so "speed- 
ily, honorably, and advantageously." 

Time is fighting for the AlHes and against 
Germany. The longer the war continues, the 

37 



INSIDE THE GERMAN EMPIRE 

more significant a factor does man power be- 
come. That is why Germany is eager for peace, 
but not any peace. 

Trifles cause grumbling, nerves ai'e on edge, 
criticism of one another is lavish. All these 
things, and more, that catch a traveler's mind 
fade into nothingness compared with the big re- 
action made on one in Germany, and that is an 
impression of fixity of intention of gaining an 
honorable peace or suffering destruction. 



CHAPTER IV 

LIBERALIZING GERMANY 

The old motto "siegen" replaced by a new: "durchhalten" — Kaiser 
Wilhelm reads signs of the times and approves liberalization — 
Fear that immediate democratization would be hailed as vic- 
tory by Allies — No dynastic overthrow planned — Germans hold 
to monarchical system — Excellenz Zimmermann, Foreign Sec- 
retary and strong man of the cabinet, discusses the impending 
change — Real body of reformation to come after war is over — 
Germany has outgrown its political swaddling-clothes — A Gov- 
ernment directly responsible through the Reichstag to the peo- 
ple, planned — How the leaders in Germany view the change. 

Seventy million people with their backs 
against the wall ; seventy million people fighting 
as one ; seventy million people, and not a quitter 
among them. That is the deep impression made 
on me by Germany. And that is why, if peace 
is dependent upon a forthright German defeat, 
peace is still remote ; for a nation unified by such 
a spirit is far from being humbled. 

Powerful as is the pressure upon which they 
are standing, heavy as are the blows they 
receive, dark though their eventual prospects 
may be, the spirit of patriotism, of steadfastness, 

39 



INSIDE THE GERMAN EMPIRE 

of courage, of defiance that the Germans are 
showing burns as brightly and as fiercely to-day, 
after more than two years of the war, as at the 
outset. 

But beneath all these attributes there is to be 
seen and felt a subtle change in the fabric of the 
German spirit. From a certainty of victory, it 
has been inexorably pressed down to a fear of 
defeat. From the ambition of world dominance, 
it has changed to a struggle for existence. From 
the hope of conquest, it has shifted to a deter- 
mination not to be conquered. Exaltation has 
given way to desperation, and the fear that Ger- 
many once sought to impose upon others is now 
being imposed by others upon Germany. 

When I was in Germany at the outbreak of 
the war the word in every one's mouth was siegen 
(conquer, or win). When I revisited the coun- 
try, after two years, another word was being 
used — durchhalten (stick it out — hold through). 
I think the second motto is spoken with more 
heart than the first, for there were many in the 
empire who opposed a war of conquest ; but now 
that conquest has been abandoned for existence, 
and the hfe of the nation is at stake, all feel the 

40 



LIBERALIZING GERMANY 

need of endurance heavy upon them. Their 
work lies plain before them, and they do not 
count the costs, for they feel that no price is too 
high to pay for national entity, and that is what 
the Germans believe they are fighting for. That 
is why they are fighting so wonderfully; that is 
why their strength is renewed after each reverse ; 
that is why there is no thought of temporizing; 
that is why I was told by many that before Ger- 
many, the nation, died, every woman would have 
to be killed. In entire seriousness, I believe that 
if the worst came to the worst, the German 
women would arm themselves and go into the 
trenches before they would see the victorious 
armies of the Allies march into Berlin. And 
such a prospect is no impossibility, for the Ger- 
man spirit stops at nothing, and such a plan is 
being seriously discussed. 

With the German spirit so obsessed by one 
idea, there is scant room for others; nevertheless 
there is a sub-surface movement of vast political 
portent. Her people seemingly have time and 
inclination only for the fight they are in. Their 
Government, their mode of life, their rules of 
conduct, they are content to leave for the present 

41 



INSIDE THE GERMAN EMPIRE 

to the few who rule. Later an accounting will 
be asked. Now they do as they are told to do, 
not as they tell themselves they ought to do. It 
may be doubted if Frederick the Great, one hun- 
dred and fifty years ago, ever was able to weld 
his Prussia into the homogeneous, mobile, and 
responsive unit that Kaiser Wilhelm II has 
made of his empire. 

But in the very unity of the nation, engaged 
upon the struggle for self-preservation, can be 
found the certain evidence that when the time 
comes, this unitj^ will be used for their own pur- 
poses — for the establishment of a truly liberal 
government in which each shall govern as well 
as be governed. 

The Germans have met the test of their right 
to self-government, which Bismarck feared to 
grant because of his belief that they were not 
ready for it. And the Kaiser himself has ap- 
proved. Perhaps he has read the signs of the 
times, perhaps he is actuated by a finer motive; 
but whatever the impulse, the emperor has said, 
"My people have shown that nothing is beyond 
them, and they shall have as large a share as they 
desire in the affairs of their Government." 

42 



LIBERALIZING GERMANY 

The imperial indorsement forms the capstone 
of the liberal structure that the war has built 
and is building. Every time the nation meets 
the new demands upon its strength the work goes 
forward. But when it will be ready for use, 
when it will displace the present system of autoc- 
racy, that is another question. The most ardent 
advocates of liberalization do not favor an imme- 
diate change. First, because it is unwise, they 
think, to swap horses while crossing a stream; 
and second, because the democratization of the 
country now would be hailed by the Allies as a 
victory they had won, and that thought does not 
help the cause of German progress. 

How cogent this second reason will be remains 
to be seen. This time element — holding the 
reform until after the war — is not immutable. 
Valks with the big men of the country gave the 
ii ipression that the change might easily come 
d\ ring the struggle, and so end it, and the nam- 
ing, in November, 1916, of Alfred Zimmermann, 
a man of the people, to succeed von Jagow, the 
aristocrat, as head of the Foreign Office, seems 
to be a step in this direction. As I have already 
pointed out, the German intellectuals believe 

43 



INSIDE THE GERMAN EMPIRE 

that the hberalization of the empire is a likely 
"way out," one of the four possible avenues to 
peace. 

When the change comes it will popularize the 
Government. It will mean the end of rule by 
divine right. It will make the Government 
responsible to the people, and not, except in- 
directly, responsible to the crown, which, under 
present conditions, as laid down by the Kaiser 
himself, is responsible only to God. 

The plans are fixed and definite. They are to 
be realized through evolution rather than revolu- 
tion. They are not pointing toward a dynastic 
overthrow. I did not hear one word to the effect 
that the HohenzoUern rule must end, and there 
is not, as certain highly placed officials in Eng- 
land believe, a readiness to remove the imperial 
crown from the Prussian house and give it to that 
of Bavaria, Saxony, or Wiirttemberg. They 
are not for a swing away from a monarchy. 
The monarchic idea is too deeply implanted in 
the German mind, which regards it as the most 
efficient type of government; they mean, as in 
England and France, the participation of the 
people in their Government through the Reichs- 



LIBERALIZING GERMANY ^ 

tag, which is to exercise real governing func- 
tions instead of being a mere debating society, 
as it is now contemptuously but truthfully 
called. 

This move toward and certainty of political 
liberalization is the most astounding fact an 
observer in the empire meets, excepting only the 
spirit of determination against being conquered. 
And it was no less astounding to hear the change 
discussed and advocated by the man next in im- 
portance to the Chancellor in the present Gov- 
ernment, Excellenz Zimmermann, who, because 
of his experience and ability, of his character and 
popularity, may advance still further when the 
reform proceeds. 

When Colonel E. M. House visited Europe 
for the President in the spring of 1916, he came 
away from Germany convinced that Zimmer- 
mann, as he put it, "is one of the biggest men in 
the empire." That is the impression generally 
held by those with whom the secretary comes into 
contact. He is a big, upstanding man, with 
strongly marked features, his face scarred by his 
university duels, and, for a German diplomat, 
unusually direct and straightforward in thought 

4f5 



INSIDE THE GERMAN EMPIRE 

and speech. His directness of mind is more 
American than German, for the Berlin diplo- 
macy still maintains as its model the circuitous 
and subtle processes usually associated with Met- 
ternich. 

I saw Zimmermann frequently during my stay 
in Geraiany, and found him to be possessed of 
a more liberal attitude and a deeper understand- 
ing of America and American ideals than any 
of the other leaders in his country. 

"It would be useless and dangerous to deny," 
said Herr Zimmermann on a day in late Septem- 
ber of 1916, sitting at his desk in the Foreign 
Office, "that the trend of political thought in 
Germany to-day is toward liberalization. Use- 
less, because it is true that the trend exists, and 
dangerous because a denial would indicate oppo- 
sition to the consummation of this thought. 

"I do not mean to say that the plans now being 
formulated are not meeting with antagonism, 
for the Conservatives and certain other political 
divisions are strong in their opposition; but I am 
sure that the bulk of the best thought in Ger- 
many to-day is in favor of effectuating the politi- 
cal changes that liberalization postulates, and I 

46 



LIBERALIZING GERMANY 

feel quite sure that these changes are certain to 
come. 

"It is possible that a certain measure of reform 
will be put into practice before the war has 
reached an end, but I should say that the real 
body of the reformation will not be taken up 
until after peace. My belief on this point is due 
to the fact that under the conditions now existing 
we are doing very well; perhaps better with a 
concentration of power than would be the case if 
the power were scattered. Further, the fact 
that our enemies are talking of forcing internal 
reforms upon us would make it seem as if such 
reforms would be a price of peace, and while we 
are anxious for the changes to come, we want 
them to come at our will and not under duress 
or coercion. 

"The vast changes that Germany has under- 
gone since the Franco-Prussian War have been 
due in no small measure to the form of govern- 
ment under which she has lived. It may be 
doubted if any other structure would have been 
successful in bringing her to the position of 
world power which she now occupies. With her 
giant's growth has come a change in her political 

49 



INSIDE THE GERMAN EMPIRE 

philosophy. By easy stages her people have 
fitted themselves for an active participation in 
the affairs of government greater than was 
assigned to them at the refoundation of the em- 
pire, when, natm-ally, her form of government 
was in a state of flux. The old Kaiser and Bis- 
marck adopted that type which in their opinion 
was best suited for the purpose Germany had. 
How well they builded is now a matter of his- 
tory. The country has outgrown its political 
swaddling-clothes and is ready to have its politi- 
cal responsibility divided among the many in- 
stead of the few." 

I asked Herr Zimmermann just what the 
change would be. 

"Along just what lines this change will come,'* 
he replied, "is still a matter of discussion. There 
are, however, certain elemental considerations the 
acceptance of which is understood. In this class 
are included the reforms of the suffrage in Prus- 
sia, which still employs the plural voting system, 
and in some of the smaller German states, where 
the form of government is still autocratic. 

"The important feature of the change will be 
the erection of direct responsibility of the Gov- 

50 



/ LIBERALIZING GERMANY 

/ 

ernment to the people through their representa- 
tives in the Reichstag. Under the present sys- 
tem there is actually no such responsibility. 
The Chancellor is at the head of the political 
government. He owes his responsibility to the 
Kaiser, by whom he is created. The various 
secretaries are not actually ministers of the cab- 
inet in the common understanding of that term. 
They are merely bureau chiefs of the Chancellor, 
who is not only nominally, but actually, their 
chief, and to whom their responsibility is alone 
due. 

*'This condition was reaffirmed by the Chan- 
cellor in his speech in the Zabern affair, when he 
pointed out that the Government was not answer- 
able to the Reichstag for the course it pursued, 
but was answerable alone to the emperor. 

"There is a definite belief in Germany to-day, 
and a belief that may not be far from realization, 
that the Government should be answerable to 
the Reichstag, thus making it responsive to the 
popular voice. Perhaps the most effective way 
of bringing this change about would be to amend 
the constitution of the confederated empire, with 
the permission and approval of the Kaiser and 

51 



INSIDE THE GERMAN EMPIRE 

the various ruling kings and heads of the confed- 
erated states by whom the constitution was 
granted. 

"In creating the responsibihty of the Chancel- 
lor to the people, it would likewise be necessary " 
to organize a cabinet, the members of which 
would have powers similar in their nature to 
those held by the cabinet officials of America, 
France, and England. The creation of such a 
form would obviate the present charge that Ger- 
many does not possess a popular govermnent, 
and would give opportunity for the effective par- 
ticipation of many minds, which now are lacking 
a mode of expression. 

"Up to this point I am in sympathy with the 

outline of the reforms that I have sketched; but 

j 
my approval stops short of accepting a plan that 

would involve the downfall of the Government 
every time the Reichstag passed a vote of lack of 
confidence. 

"It must be borne in mind that there are in 
Germany to-day something like twenty-five sep- 
arate political organizations. This number is 
unwieldy and dangerous to successful execution 
of governmental projects because of the facility 

52 



LIBERALIZING GERMANY 

with which opi)osition could be welded together 
on one pretext or another to overthrow the min- 
istiy. Therefore, since Germany does not 
possess the two-party system found in England 
and America, and as the German poHtical issues 
are largely internal rather than foreign, it is my 
idea that in the creation of the new form of gov- 
ernmental responsibility there should be given to 
the Government a fixed tenm'e of office similar to 
that which America possesses, where the cabinet 
is emplaced for four years. 

"Perhaps the plan would work out in such a 
way as to give the members of the Reichstag a 
definite term of service and make the service of 
the ministry coincident with that period. I 
would, however, depart from the practice now in 
vogue in America, and give the members of the 
ministry seats in the Reichstag, as is the system 
in other countries to-daj^ Through this plan 
they would be in position to explain and defend 
their official acts and, as executives of the people's 
will, have the opportunity of setting forth their 
plans and policies to the representatives of the 
people." 

Herr Zimmermann went further, but the rest 

53 



INSIDE THE GERMAN EMPIRE 

was said under the seal of confidence. He is 
known as a stanch Liberal in politics and a man 
of high ideals, but this was the first time that he 
had permitted himself to be quoted on a question 
that is deep in the minds of all Germans to- 
day. 

His friends — and his enemies, too — agree that 
when the change comes the secretary will have 
to be reckoned with, because he is accounted one 
of the ablest parliamentarians in Germany to- 
day, and is possessed of an alert, keen, lucid, and 
widely informed mind. 

Bethmann-Hollweg is said by those closest to 
him to be heartily in favor of the purposed 
reform, although it fell to his lot to enunciate 
the Zabern doctrine — that is, the responsibility 
of the Chancellor to the Kaiser alone. He made 
the pronouncement because it was true, and 
because under the existing conditions it was 
necessary, but he is counted among those who are 
anxious to see the basic conditions changed. Dr. 
Helfferich and Dr. Solf are two more members 
of the present Government who are set down as 
favoring the refonn. Jagow is not being com- 
mitted by his friends, but he is generally re- 

54 



LIBERALIZING GERMANY 

garded as among those who prefer the retention 
of the present system. 

Count Brockdorff-Rantzau, the unusually able 
German minister to Denmark, who wields con- 
siderable power in the politics of his country, 
though an aristocrat by birth and breeding, is a 
supporter of the movement, and so is his cousin. 
Count Johann von Bernstorff, the German 
ambassador to America. The supporters and 
antagonists of the reform are not divided by class 
distinctions, for against these aristocrats who 
favor the change stand representatives of the 
National Liberal party, such as Bassermann and 
Stresemann, who are devoted to the present 
regime. The National Liberal party, with its 
high-sounding title, is as standpat and as reac- 
tionary as the Conservatives and Agrarians are. 
The party is primarily representative of the big 
industrial elements of Germany's commercial 
life, and its leaders have much in common with 
the sturdy, stiff-necked, high-protection Repub- 
licanism of the "LTncle Joe" Cannon, McKinley, 
Penrose, and Smoot type. 

Under the present system of governmental 
operation in Germany the Reichstag possesses 

55 



INSIDE THE GERMAN EMPIRE 

virtually only that elemental right — the primary 
power the people have under even the most lim- 
ited form of representative government — of 
withholding taxes from purposes that are not 
approved. The exercise of this right has been 
often threatened, but rarely used. 

So out of the seething caldi'on of the war it 
is almost certain that a new and finer form of 
government will come to Germany. This is one 
of the few prospects left to cheer the German 
mind, which has otherwise a rather black pros- 
pect; for despite their remarkable military tri- 
umphs, the Germans do not delude themselves 
that they can win a complete victory, and without 
some hope of internal betterment their future 
would be dark indeed. 



56 



CHAPTER V 

THE SPIRIT OE THE BELEAGUERED EMPIRE 

Germany sobered to-day — Calls herself a "beleaguered fortress" 
and establishes "Burgfriede" — Junkerthura violates the po- 
litical truce — Dream of German super-state forgotten — Neces- 
sity of the war doubted — Some conservatives prefer destruc- 
tion of Germany to its democratization — Kaiser's prestige 
great — Censorship used to burke criticism — Germany's "reptile 
press" and her belief in the venality of foreign papers — The 
Jewish question — The women — Spread of autocratic Socialism 
— The strain of life in Germany to-day. 

The bitterness of the struggle and the desper- 
ate conditions they are facing are reflexed in the 
spirit of the Germans to-day. There is httle 
or no blitheness in Germany. She takes her 
pleasures sadly and takes them only because 
recreation is held to be a duty, so that her sons 
and daughters may be better fitted for the work 
that they are doing for the fatherland. For 
each individual in the fatherland to-day is doing 
his or her share for the cause. They have settled 
down to the situation in the belief that they are 
now undergoing the last phases of the war, real- 

57 



INSIDE THE GERMAN EMPIRE 

izing that the lines along which the war, both 
pohtically and economically, is now being fought 
are the lines along which the end will come. 

This must not be taken to mean that the Ger- 
mans believe they are doomed to defeat; if any 
one of them believes that, the belief is well hid- 
den. It means simply that the conditions Ger- 
many is now facing will be, without material 
change, those she will face when peace relieves 
the fearful strain that she is undergoing, under 
which, although her military spirit has remained 
unbroken and her armies continue successful, 
there are to be seen evidences of the beginning of 
a political and spiritual disintegration. Such 
evidences are inevitable concomitants of the re- 
action from the certainty of victory to a fear of 
defeat, but they may be rather a means to bring 
about an even greater determination not to be 
beaten than an indication that national decompo- 
sition is under way. 

Germany to-day calls herself a "beleaguered 
fortress," and that is what she is in actuality. 
An iron ring engirdles her. Therefore it was 
fitting that a Burgfriede should be decreed at 
the beginning of the war. Burgfriede means, 

58 



SPIRIT OF THE BELEAGUERED EMPIRE 

broadly, "civic peace"; it is a principle handed 
down from olden days, when the various separate 
free cities and states were engaged in war. Such 
cities or states would by agreement forget all 
internal dissensions, so that they could present 
united fronts against common foes. 

The Burgfriede of Germany was agreed to by 
all the parties at the outbreak of this war, and 
for a time it was religiously maintained. But 
now the friends of the Chancellor are accusing 
those opposing him, most of them members of the 
Conservative or affiliated parties, of having 
broken the truce. The Social Democrats, who 
have been loyal in their support of the Govern- 
ment, say that the Junkerthum in its open an- 
tagonism to the governmental policies, has been 
guilty of an act almost as bad as treachery. 

The teaching of force as an element of govern- 
ment, as laid down in the precepts of Nietzsche, 
Treitschke, Clausewitz, Frobenius, and Bem- 
hardi, which had permeated the entire moral, 
scholastic, and political fabric of the German 
Empire, is beginning to wear off. It is not rare 
for an observer to hear the question asked if there 
be no middle course between World Power and 

69 



INSIDE THE GERMAN EMPIRE 

Downfall, if there be not one making, if less for 
power, then more for happiness. 

It is readily observable that the war has 
changed the German idea and the national im- 
pulse. The fond dream of a great world super- 
state, which was only another name for a 
Germanized world, has dissipated, and with few 
exceptions the leaders of thought in Germany 
are well contented with any plan in which their 
present is assured and their legitimate future 
expansion safeguarded. That expansion lies 
toward the south and east; that is why the Ger- 
mans feel they have a deep and vital interest in 
the Balkans. It is through that region that the 
lines of their development must go as long as 
England holds the seas. 

There are those in Germany who are even 
beginning to wonder if the war was not escapa- 
ble. "No one wanted it, least of all ourselves," 
they say; "so wasn't there a way by which the 
war could have been avoided, even without the 
added power that a victory promised?" This is 
one of the questions that will be asked when the 
accounting is made and responsibility for the 
cataclysm is allocated. 

60 




g) Br..« 



KAISER WILIIELM 



SPIRIT OF THE BELEAGUERED EMPIRE 

These doubters, who do not let their theories 
interfere with facing the conditions which exist, 
feel that they have grounds for their doubt as to 
the virtue of the war in the former success of the 
policy of "pacific penetration." They point out 
that under this system Germany had gained 
great strength, if not commercial dominance, in 
Turkey, Greece, Bulgaria, Roumania, and even 
in Serbia, despite the waning power of Austria 
there. And above all they point out that Italy 
was rapidly becoming an exclusive German field 
of effort. Now, they ask themselves, what have 
they left? Only Turkey and Bulgaria, while 
the others of the list are lost to German influence, 
if not forever, at least for years to come. These 
views are in direct opposition to the old spirit of 
force under which Germany was to be the super- 
nation; the specially chosen of "the good old 
God," the spirit that made Force equal Right. 
It was a creed that formed a political doctrine, a 
scholastic formula, and a religious faith. Those 
Germans upon whom the hold of this spirit is 
weakening are weakening only in their belief in 
this spirit; their changed philosophy has not 
weakened their devotion to national existence 

63 



INSIDE THE GERMAN EMPIRE 

and their determination to preserve it at any 
cost. 

The advocates of greater ruthlessness in the 
war are also those most determined in their oppo- 
sition to the coming Hberalization. They are 
largely recruited from the Conservatives and the 
officers of the army and navy. Some observers 
read into the opposition a decision upon the part 
of the Junkerthum to preserve the military dom- 
ination, and with it the class privileges it enjoys; 
for it fears, with reason, that one immediate 
effect of liberalization will be to end the condi- 
tion in which the nation exists for the support of 
the army, and substitute a condition where the 
army exists only for the protection of the nation. 

Some of the conservative elements in Germany 
who are advocating the "wide-open" program of 
warfare in the face of its certainty to involve 
America would' rather see Germany destroyed 
than see it democratized. Naturally this is a 
point upon which few are willing to talk with any 
freedom. 

It must not be inferred that the Kaiser is deriv- 
ing his sole support from the ranks of the Con- 
servatives. The country is thoroughly unified 

64* 



SPIRIT OF THE BELEAGUERED EMPIRE 

in adiierence to the emperor. The Cologne 
"Gazette," one of the most influential papers of 
Germany, printed an editorial late in September 
which was republished throughout the empire 
and met with great favor. The paper said that 
it was as sensible for Germany to demand the 
deposition of the Enghsh king as for the Allies 
to expect the enforced abdication of the Kaiser, 
"whose prestige and general veneration have only 
increased during this period of war, and who is 
to-day stronger in the hearts and minds of the 
Germans than he ever was before. . . . More- 
over, we Germans are so completely informed 
from trustworthy sources about all the facts and 
motives that produced this war that it is utterly 
impossible that we should reverse our judgment." 
The spirit of patriotism and nationality is as 
strong in Germany to-day as ever it was, despite 
grave errors in policy, none of which seems more 
serious than the rigid political censorship now 
enforced in the empire. This censorship is used 
more often to burke criticism than to keep infor- 
mation from the enemj^ This policy is probably 
the cause of the Allies' belief that the German 
Government is entirely on the defensive against 

65 



INSIDE THE GERMAN EMPIRE 

its own people. Such an unqualified statement 
is far from being true. But the belief in its truth 
is understandable when the instance of the *'Ber- 
liner Tageblatt" is recalled — one of Germany's 
big papers that was suppressed for seven days 
during the summer of 1916, and no one yet 
knows the cause. Obviously, the outside as- 
sumption is that the step was taken to prevent 
the spread of rot in public opinion. 

The newspapers of Germany are bound to 
play a big part in the imminent liberalization of 
the German Empire. The governmental atti- 
tude is still largely that of Bismarck toward the 
"reptile press." The German belief in the venal- 
ity of the press, which is the regular theory of 
operation, was shown recently when a stoiy 
emanating from Holland, ascribed to reliable 
sources in Berlin, said that something like $50,- 
000,000 had been spent by Germany in two 
years for the subsidization of public opinion in 
neutral countries, and it was added that some- 
thing like $10,000,000 had been spent in this 
country. If that is true, it would account for 
the readiness with which the Germans believe 
that all the newspapers in America not friendly 

66 



SPIRIT OF THE BELEAGUERED EMPIRE 

to their cause are bought by "British gold," in 
which class they place the New York Times and 
New York Tribune, and also The World, when- 
ever its editorials or news columns say anything 
unfriendly from the German point of view. 

Early in the war Zimmermann said that, 
among other things, it would settle one interest- 
ing point, and that was whether it was better to 
be a "journalistically ruled nation like America 
and England, or a non- journalistic nation Hke 
Germany." I asked him when I left Berlin in 
the autumn of 1916 if he had reached a decision 
on this point. He smiled and said, "Well, per- 
haps a little more journalistic participation in the 
affairs of the Government might be a good thing 
for Germany, after all." 

When the liberalization comes, the Jewish 
question will reassert itself. It is forgotten 
now, in the Sturm und Drang of the war. 
There have been a few modifications of the 
Jewish disabilities, but nothing of any substan- 
tial nature has been done. 

Another question that will arise will be that 
of the women. As they win a greater economic 
independence, they will demand gi-eater political 

67 



INSIDE THE GERMAN EMPIRE 

recognition, which is now given virtually no seri- 
ous thought in the empire. 

The spread of autocratic Socialism, to coin a 
phrase that describes precisely the enforced 
social cooperation and combination prevalent in 
Germany to-day, is welcomed by the liberal 
minds as maldng it easier to democratize the 
nation, when the time shall come. It is an offi- 
cial recognition of the people's part in the work 
of the country, opposed to the old way of regard- 
ing the mass of inhabitants as merely an inferior 
lot who are accorded the privilege of being ruled. 

Life in Germany is not pleasant to-day. 
There is a hopeless, prison atmosphere about it 
that causes men to crack under the strain. The 
effect is peculiarly noticeable upon the neutrals. 
They grow fretted and nerve-racked. Several 
attaches of the embassy, and some of the Ameri- 
can correspondents, have suffered nervous pros- 
tration. Berlin, more than any other Geraian 
city, has become a nest of intrigue and gossip. 
A motive is looked for behind every man's act. 
This creates an atmosphere of distrust and sus- 
picion. 

Germany's place in the sun may be remote, 
68 



SPIRIT OF THE BELEAGUERED EMPIRE 

and the sun may be growing cloudy, but Ger- 
man's spirit does not waver; her courage still 
answers every test; her soldiers are still un- 
touclied in their bravery and skill; and every 
sacrifice that she asks is being met willingly, 
almost gladly. 



69 



CHAPTER VI 

GERMAN HATRED OF AMERICA: ITS CAUSES 

German hate for England expressed in fighting; that for America 
has no outlet — America held to blame for German reverses — 
Grounds for German hate: (1) Export of munitions; (2) Brit- 
ish blockade, not stopped by America; (3) Interference with 
mails; (4) Commercial blacklist; (5) President Wilson's sub- 
marine doctrine — "American neutrality toward Germany is of 
the head; that toward the Allies is of the heart," says Jagow — 
Belief in loyalty of German- Americans to the Kaiser — Ameri- 
can attaches barred from the front — Ambassador Gerard's re- 
tort to an official — Commercial hostility. 

Throughout Germany to-day the hatred for 
America is bitter and deep. It is palpable and 
weighs you down. All the resentment, all the 
blind fury, Germany once reserved for England 
alone have been expanded to include us, and 
have been accentuated in the expansion. 

The Germans have an outlet for their feelings 
against England. They express themselves on 
the battle-fields and through the Zeppelins and 
submarines; but against America they lack a 
method of registering their enmity. And so this 

70 



GERMAN HATRED OF AMERICA 

bitterness cannot be poured out, has struck in 
and saturated the whole empire. 

The chagrin and humihation of their failure to 
end the war through victory before now is visited 
upon America. The failure gave birth to hatred. 
Throughout the length and breadth of Germany 
the belief is certain and unqualified that had it 
not been for American moral and physical help 
to the Allies the war would long since have been 
over. With magnificent disregard of the checks 
and reverses, both military and economic, that 
Germany has suffered at the hands of the Allies, 
her sons, from top to bottom, say that only 
America is to blame for the fact that the war 
is now well into its third year, and for the more 
pertinent fact that as time goes on the German 
chances are bound to grow less. 

It is a common thing to hear in Germany that 
Aiperica has a secret alliance with England 
under which she is now operating; is even more 
of a commonplace to be told that America is 
deliberately seeking to prolong the war and cir- 
cumvent peace for the "bloody-money" she is 
making out of the struggle. Germany's fear of 
defeat and loss of prestige are laid at our door; 

71 



INSIDE THE GERMAN EMPIRE 

we are made the sacrificial goat offered on the 
altar of self -glory. 

Hate may have no boundaries, but it has be- 
ginnings, and it is not hard to classify the grounds 
from which the German hatred of America 
springs. There are five, possibly six. They 
are, as the Germans put them : 

First, the supply of munitions to the Allies. 

Second, the illegal blockade for which we are 
held responsible since we have not stopped it. 

Third, the interference with neutral mails. 

Fourth, the Allies' world-wide commercial 
blacklist. 

Fifth, the submarine doctrine we have com- 
pelled Germany to accept. 

And the sixth is one which may be a consider- 
able factor — that America is out of the war and 
prospering; for what is more usual than for envy 
to breed hate? Perhaps this sixth cause of Ger- 
man hatred might with equal truth be applied to 
the resentment said to exist against us in the 
other countries at war, for surely Germany is not 
the only one that resents our peace and prosper- 
ity. 

Our interpretation of neutrality is made the 
72 



GERMAN HATRED OF AMERICA 

object of bitter recrimination in Germany, and 
it is a subject on which even those placed in the 
highest positions speak with the utmost candor. 
Jagow, until November, 1916, chief secretaiy 
of state for foreign affairs, and Zimmermann, 
his chief under-secretary, who succeeded him, in 
discussing the American attitude, phrased the 
sentiments of their country when they said : 

The American neutrality toward Germany is one of 
the head; toward the Allies it is one of the heart. 
What America does for the Allies she does voluntarily 
and gladly; what she does for Germany she does be- 
cause she must. 

This is a mild view compared to the popular 
idea. The resentment against America has been 
cumulative in its growth, while that against Eng- 
land is perhaps less to-day than it was at the be- 
ginning. Because her military activity is against 
the English, it has wrought at least a measure of 
satisfaction. But the very fact that America 
has been out of reach of a concrete demonstra- 
tion of German hatred has made more bitter the 
feeling toward America, to such a degree that 
it has become actually menacing. The form it 
takes is the widespread and highly popular agita- 

73 



INSIDE THE GERMAN EMPIRE 

tion for the resumption of the ruthless Lusitania 
type of U-boat warfare. 

Throughout Germany the agitation for this 
plan grows stronger day by day. The Chancel- 
lor is holding out against it, but how long he can 
restrain it no one can say. I left Germany con- 
vinced that only peace could prevent its resump- 
tion. And the same opinion is held by every 
German with whom I spoke, and it is held also by 
Ambassador Gerard. The possibility was so 
menacing that the principal cause of the am- 
bassador's return to America in October was that 
he might report to Washington. The point was 
set out in press despatches at that time. 

But while the plan of returning to the Liosi- 
tania type of submarine warfai'e is made more 
popular by the fact that it would be a blow at 
America, since America struck this weapon from 
German hands, it must not be thought that the 
advocates of the resumption view it merely as 
an offering to hate ; they insist that it is an instru- 
ment of great military value, and they pretend to 
believe that its use will tend to shorten the war. 
However, the most ardent disciples of this plan 
can give no logical reasons for their belief, while 

74 



GERMAN HATRED OF AMERICA 

those supporting the Chancellor in his opposition 
are able to demonstrate the soundness of their at- 
titude. In normal circumstances this alinement 
of reason against unreason would be a guarantee 
against the success of the "ruthless" advocates, 
but when a nation has its back against the wall, 
fighting for existence, reason gives way to fury, 
and fury stops at nothing. 

Germany is not confining her methods of 
showing her resentment toward America to this 
country. She is making demonstrations within 
her own boarders. General Hindenburg sent 
word through his chief of staff, Ludendorff, to 
Colonel Kuhn, our militaiy attache, and Com- 
mander Gherardi our naval attache, that neither 
would be permitted to go to the front or have 
opportunities for observation, although these 
privileges are being regularly extended to the 
observers of all other neutral countries. This 
was made the basis of representations, through 
our embassy to Washington, and Colonel Kuhn 
was finally recalled from his Berlin post. 

Another instance: the League of Truth, a so- 
called German- American society, which sympa- 
thized with St. John Gaffney, former American 
/ 75 



INSIDE THE GERMAN EMPIRE 

consul at Munich, in his pro-Germanism and op- 
position to the administration's interpretation of 
neutrahty, laid at the foot of the statue of Fred- 
erick the Great in Berlin, a big wreath with the 
American flag, draped in mourning to indicate 
its desecration, and added a legend to the effect, 
"Wilson does not represent America." The flag 
thus draped remained at the foot of the statue 
for weeks by the tacit permission of the military 
authorities. It was not removed until Ambas- 
sador Gerard, who had been ill, told the police 
that if they did not take it down, he would do 
so himself. 

How strong Germany believes herself to be 
in America can be seen in any of the political 
maps issued by the Pan-German LeagTie, on 
which a great blob of pink indicates the residence 
in America of the nine millions of German birth 
or parentage. Those making up this number 
are claimed as indirect members of the league, 
who are, or ought to be, as the pan-Germans see 
it, ready at all times to do Germany's bidding. 
It is the belief of these pan-Germans that 
through their far-flung membership some day 
German Kultur will dominate the world. 

76 



GERMAN HATRED OF AMERICA 

Not only does Germany believe that her polit- 
ical strength in this country is great enough to 
make the American Government take it into 
consideration, if not to make it actually subser- 
vient to the Wilhelmstrasse, but the belief goes 
further. One prominent member of the Gov- 
ernment told the ambassador he had been in- 
formed that America would not risk a war with 
Germany, because "there were five hundred 
thousand trained Germans ready to bear arms in 
the United States against the American Govern- 
ment." 

"There may be," was Gerard's quick response, 
"but there are five hundred thousand lamp-posts 
in America ready to string them up on if they 
ever try it." 

Thereafter the ambassador made it a point to 
correct this false impression that the naturalized 
Germans in America, whatever their politics, 
would actually go so far as to arm against their 
own country. In this effort he was supported 
by Dr. M. E. Egan, American minister to Den- 
mark, who worked through Count Brockdorff- 
Rantzau, the very intelligent German minister in 
Copenhagen, who finally came to this view and 

77 



INSIDE THE GERMAN EMPIRE 

helped eradicate the mistaken one that had been 
held in Berlin. 

It is a commonplace to talk of insults to those 
speaking English in the streets of Germany. 
Wlienever the explanation is made that the 
speaker is American, the answer comes, "The 
Americans are the worst of all." There can be 
no doubt of the depth of this feeling; it even 
invades business. Two enterprising, well-con- 
nected young New-Yorkers, who had gone to 
Germany on business, were about to have an im- 
portant commercial contract signed in Chemnitz, 
in November, 1916, only to have the German 
merchant tear up the papers before them because 
he got word that day that a friend of his had been 
killed *'by an American shell." If one is to be- 
lieve the stories one hears in Germany, every 
German soldier killed so far has been killed by 
American ammunition. Major Griesel, chief of 
the war press bureau in Berlin, keeps three 
American shells on his desk by way of welcom- 
ing the American correspondents, and then to 
make them feel at home he adds that he was 
wounded by one of them. 



78 



CHAPTER VII 

THE MENACE OF THE U-BOAT 

Export of munitions declared legally right but morally wrong — 
Success of the German submarines — The internal crisis hinging 
on the submarine issue — Resumption of ruthless U-boat war 
inevitable unless peace comes soon — Strength of the opposition 
— What a diplomatic break would mean — The lesson of the 
U-53 — Estrangement heightened by difficulties of communica- 
tion — The Paris Conference plans directed against the U. S.? 
— ^\Vill the hatred be permanent? 

Of the five points on which the German hatred 
crystalhzes/ the first and the fifth — munitions 
and submarines — are easy to answer, but the 
other three are more difficult. Lacking though 
they may be in reason, the grievances he deep in 
German hearts. Even Jagow said, when I 
called on him one afternoon, that Germany had 
the right to feel injured through our munition 
shipments. When I replied that it was Ger- 
many herself that had prevented The Hague 
Conference from prohibiting the sale of arma- 
ment to belhgerents, and that therefore it was 
Germany that had created the right under which 

1 See page 73. 

79 



INSIDE THE GERMAN EMPIRE 

America was operating, he replied that "jui-isti- 
cally, America might have the right, but morally 
she was committing a great wrong." When 
such an attitude is assumed by those in high 
places, the belief of the mass of the people can 
readily be imagined. 

The point about the blockade is one on which 
the argument is not so clear-cut. The Germans 
say that the English are bringing the war to the 
non-combatant; they are seeking to starve 
women and children. The points about the 
interference with the mails and the blacklists are 
also difficult for an American in Germany to 
answer, except to point out that grave protests 
have been made by Washington against them 
both. 

"Yes," said Excellenz Zimmermann in re- 
sponse, "but the protests to us are ones that we 
must listen to, while apparently England can 
disregard those you send to her." When they 
heard in Germany that America was sending her 
mail to the far East in army transports, the ques- 
tion was at once raised as to why the same method 
was not employed with mail intended for neu- 
tral European countries. 

80 



THE MENACE OF THE U-BOAT 

The German attitude on our submarine doc- 
trine seems to have the least basis in fact of all 
the contributory causes to the hatred of America. 
Despite the restrictions imposed by President 
Wilson on the use of the U-boats, despite the 
claim that Germans make that America struck 
"the mightiest weapon" from Germany's hand, 
the German admiralty reports that the oper- 
ations of the submarines reached the high-water 
mark in August, 1916. Dr. Roediger, one of 
the divisional chiefs of the Foreign Office, whose 
efficiency is winning him a high reputation, is 
responsible for the following record of the work 
of the U-boats in 1916. In reading the list it 
must be borne in mind that up to June the Ger- 
mans were still operating on a wide-open pro- 
gram, not having accepted the terms of our Sus- 
seoc note until toward the end of May. The 
table follows : 

No. ships 
sunk Tons ^ 

January and February 120 288,500 

March 80 207,000 

April 96 225,000 

1 German metric tons are about two per cent, larger than tons 
reckoned under our system. 

81 



INSIDE THE GERMAN EMPIRE 

No. ships 
svmk Tons 

May 56 ..... 118,500 

June 61 101,000 

July 75 103,000 

August 161 208,349 

8 months ,649 1,251,349 

The advocates of the ruthless type of the U- 
boat warfare say that sinking without warning is 
the only course left open to them because of 
England's action in ordering all her ships to be 
armed and to ram submarines on sight. This is 
the view of the military advocates. The ques- 
tion has become a factor in Germany's internal 
politics, since it is being urged by the Conserva- 
tives and the National Liberals, representatives 
of the reactionary element, and opposed by the 
Social Democrats and the Radicals and other 
liberal bodies. Chancellor von Bethmann-Holl- 
weg is determined in his opposition to the plan, 
on the gi'ound that it is suicide for Germany to 
adopt it. In this view he has been supported by 
Zimmermann, Helfferich and Dr. Solf, and 
nominally by Jagow. But the pressure upon 




VON JAGOW, LATE GERMAN MINISTEK OF KOUEKJX AFFAIRS 



THE MENACE OF THE U-BOAT 

them is becoming greater through the insistence 
of the people, who see in the unrestricted U-boat 
campaign first of all a chance of multiplying the 
costs of the war to England, and, second, a 
chance to offend and injure America. So the 
people's hearts are in the demand for the resump- 
tion unless peace comes. 

The immediacy of the demand lessened with 
the succession of military victories in the autumn 
of 1916, which acted as a sop to the desire for 
ruthlessness. But even the most hopeful in 
Germany, such as Scheidemann, Suedekum, 
David, and others of the Social Democratic 
group, and Naumann of the Radicals, admit that 
resumption must come within a few months 
unless peace comes first. Bassermann, Strese- 
mann, and Count Westarp of the opposition 
frankly want to begin the campaign at once. 
This view was held, surprisingly enough, by 
Herbert Guttmann, president of the powerful 
Dresdner bank, whose relations with America 
would have justified the belief that he would be 
in opposition to such plans. 

How deeply grounded is the resentment occa- 
sioned by the failure to use any effective means 

85 



INSIDE THE GERMAN EMPIRE 

of war was shown when the Chancellor, before 
the opening of the Reichstag in the summer of 
1916, was under the necessity of having Count 
Zeppelin write him a public letter acquitting 
him of the charge that he had opposed the use 
of "Zeps" in raids over England. Only with 
this clean bill of health could the Chancellor 
make his speech at the reconvening of the Reichs- 
tag, in which he said "any German statesman 
who opposed an effective means of shortening 
the war should be hanged." The ambiguity of 
the statement gave room for the advocates of the 
ruchsichtlose Krieg to hope that the Chancellor 
would eventually shift to their point of view. 

They frankly say that they have nothing to 
gain from America, and so they think war might 
as well come. They think that America at war 
with Germany would be less harmful to her than 
America at peace, because they believe that if 
war came, America would keep all her munitions 
at home. Official Washington regards the Ger- 
man belief on this point as wholly wrong. Our 
share of the war's burden would be borne by sup- 
plying even gi-eater quantities of munitions to 
the Alhes. 

86 



THE MENACE OF THE U-BOAT 

Then, too, there is a question in Germany as 
to whether a diplomatic break with this country 
would actually mean war. It is beheved at 
Washington that a break would mean war, and 
the German Government has itself so stated. 
Ambassador Bernstorff has made his position 
clear on this point, which was first raised in the 
celebrated pamphlet by "Junius Alter," issued 
recently, in which an astoundingly bitter attack 
was made upon the Chancellor and his secretaries. 
The writer, who is a prominent member of the 
Conservative partj^, expresses doubt as to 
"whether any one in Berlin ever tried to measure 
the exact consequences of a clash with America/' 
and adds : 

People with knowledge of the internal politics of the 
United States, and of its fleet and army, among them 
a well-known diplomatist, have declared that armed 
interference by America is absolutely out of the ques- 
tion. The only practical consequence of a break in 
diplomatic relations would be the confiscation of the 
merchant ships now lying in American ports. 

This pamphlet had a wide-spread circulation 
and gi^eat popularity in Germany. 

Among others who are supporting the agita- 

S7 



INSIDE THE GERMAN EMPIRE 

tion for the resumption is said to be General 
Mackensen, who is a notorious Amerikaner- 
fresser (Aiiierican-eater), as the Americano- 
phobes are called. It is a subject of common 
talk in army circles that Hindenburg's so-called 
opposition to the "ruthless war" is merely a po- 
litical position assumed for the time being. 
Never once has the general in chief been quoted 
directly as standing against it. 

Count Bernstorff is opposed to the plan, and 
feels certain it will never be put into execution; 
but Count Kantzau, a few days after he had 
paid a visit to the Kaiser and the great general 
staff, told me frankly that he feared the plan was 
rapidly becoming unavoidable. 

Our embass}^ in Berlin expected just such a 
demonstration as was given by the U-53 in Octo- 
ber when she sank six vessels off Nantucket, as 
a lesson of what Germany could do in our waters 
if war came. In the minds of all well-informed 
Germans the visit of the U-53 had no other 
object. 

One cause of the growing estrangement of the 
two countries is found in the difficulty of com- 
munication. Post and cable intercourse have 

88 



THE MENACE OF THE U-BOAT 

virtually ceased, and only the limited service 
by wireless remains. The American public, 
through the American papers, gets much more 
and truer news of Germany than Germany does 
of America. Most of the ])ig American papers 
maintain men in Germany who get their news 
across, but few, perhaps not more than two or 
three, German papers, have staff members in 
America. As a result, German news of America 
comes from Rotterdam, after being picked out 
of the English papers in London. The English 
papers get their reports from New York, and 
frequently the English despatches on the Ameri- 
can end of German situations have been gar- 
bled and misleading, and the repubhcation in 
Germany does not serve to increase the friendli- 
ness of feeling. 

In those calmer moments when the dislike of 
America is forgotten, the Germans point out how 
unwise a course America is pursuing in not ally- 
ing herself agamst England, who, the Germans 
say, is guided always bj^ its traditional policy of 
smashing her most dangerous competitor. That 
is the work she is engaged in now, the German 
reasoning continues, and if Germany is de- 

89 



INSIDE THE GERMAN EMPIRE 

stroyed, it will be America's turn next to face the 
British greed for world supremacy. In support 
of this view, the Paris Economic Conference is 
pointed to as the binding together of Britain's 
allies for the war that is to be made against us. 
Nor is this view without supporters highly placed 
in this country, even though they may not agree 
that this contingencj^ can be averted by an imme- 
diate alliance with Germany. 

While the war goes on, German resentment 
grows, and the new generation is being raised in 
hatred of America, and this sentiment will prove 
a barrier between the two countries for a long 
time to come unless America is fortunate enough 
to be able to exorcise it through the olive-branch 
of peace. 



90 



CHAPTER VIII 

GERMANY AND THE AMERICAN PRESIDENT 

Wilson personifies America to Germany, so hate centers on him — 
Ambassador Gerard shares the hostility though officials respect 
him — Yet Germany willing to accept Wilson as mediator — 
Germans favored Hughes because they wanted to punish Wil- 
son — Harden the only German to praise Wilson. 

Ir it be impossible to indict a nation, it appears 
to be equally difficult to hate a whole nation 
without centering the hatred upon some one 
point or man. In the case of Germany, Presi- 
dent Wilson personifies America, and so the 
German hatred is centered on Wilson. Further, 
because President Wilson is represented by 
Ambassador Gerard, that official is loaded down 
with responsibility for all the shortcomings the 
Germans are able to perceive in our attitude 
toward them. 

It is a difficult thing for a neutral to be neutral 
in Germany to-day. The best friends of Ger- 
many must admit that her demands on one's sen- 
timents are rather harsh. In Berlin any one 

91 



INSIDE THE GERMAN EMPIRE 

who is not outspokenly an advocate of German 
supremacy is gazed upon with coldness and sus- 
picion. 

Ambassador Gerard, seeking to interpret the 
principles of the President of the country he 
represents, has been neither pro-Ally nor pro- 
German, but merely pro- American, and for this 
he has been attacked, although the attacks have 
been cloaked under various and specious causes. 

The Berlin Government thinks well of Mr. 
Gerard, but the people view him solely as the 
American ambassador, and the adjective before 
his title is enough to damn him. To a consider- 
able extent the censors are responsible for feed- 
ing this sentiment in the articles they have 
permitted to be printed. They even resent the 
ambassador's efforts to inform his own country 
of the depth of the German feeling against it. 
They say, if he were "truly friendly," he would 
say nothing which might increase the tension, 
even though the Germans themselves, through 
some of their spokesmen, have deliberately 
sought to bring about a strained relation. 

A striking illustration of this was afforded in 
the Tirpitz manifesto, in which the grand admiral 

92 



GERMANY AND AMERICAN PRESIDENT 

called upon all his followers to prepare for the 
certain struggle that was to come between Ger- 
many and the Anglo-Amerikanerthum. While 
this utterance was given circulation in Germany, 
the censors dechned to permit it to be sent out 
of the country until America learned of it 
through the embassy, after which it was per- 
mitted to be put upon the cables, since a con- 
tinued suppression would have made the effect 
even more serious than it was. 

Not long ago it might well have been doubted 
if Germany would have been willing to accept 
intermediation at the hands of the President. 
Now they would be happy to have it come from 
him, although they will not admit that either he 
or his ambassador has been sincerely working to 
bring about peace among the belligerents. 

Germany has been eager to have the President 
take some steps toward arranging, if nothing 
else, an armistice. But she has not yet shown a 
willingness to authorize such a proceeding offi- 
cially. She wants the peace proposals brought 
to her; she will not go after them, not even to 
the extent of requesting the preliminary good 
offices of America. It is safe to say that no mat- 

93 



INSIDE THE GERMAN EMPIRE 

ter what indirect efforts she may employ in this 
connection, Washington will do nothing until a 
formal request has been made. 

The campaign for the ruthless U-boat warfare 
is regarded by one man in this country, who 
speaks with the highest German authority, as 
being in the .nature of a threat intended to accel- 
erate and force upon us a movement toward 
peace. Ambassador Gerard had his attention 
drawn to this just before he left Berlin, but he 
declined to accept the interpretation. 

America's failure to effect a peace has been 
more of a crime in German eyes than her own 
failure to force one through military conquests. 
That is another count in the indictment lodged 
against Wilson. That is another reason why 
Wilson's defeat on Election day would have 
been regarded as a gigantic German triumph. 
Every one I spoke to in Germany believed this. 

It would have been treated as a victory not 
because the Germans felt certain that Hughes 
was the man they wanted but because they were 
certain that Wilson was the man that they did 
not want. There was an apparent and admitted 
motive of satisfying the German passion for 

94* 



GERMANY AND AMERICAN PRESIDENT 

reprisal — of punishing those standing against 
her. 

On all sides I heard that Wilson must be hum- 
bled ; that Wilson and his country must be taught 
a lesson. This was stated unequivocally, in so 
many words, by many Germans — officers, sol- 
diers, government officials, bankers, merchants, 
and by none of these classes was it stated more 
emphatically than by the women. All believed 
that the defeat of Wilson would be in the nature 
of a rebuke and a warning to this country for the 
attitude it had assumed toward the empire. 

One distinguished member of the Foreign 
Office in Wilhehnstrasse, who is himself rather 
favorably disposed toward America and the 
administration, interpreted the feeling of his 
nation in these words: 

If Germany was certain Hughes would be her enemy, 
still would she seek Wilson's destruction. "Let us 
smash Wilson now," the people say, "and then if 
Hughes proves another Wilson, we will smash him too 
in another four years." 

Because om* anti-submarine attitude is so big 
a matter to them, they think it also of primary 
importance here, and many believed that it was 

95 



INSIDE THE GERMAN EMPIRE 

an actual factor in the election. The choice of 
Hughes in German eyes would have been 
regarded as an actual repudiation of Wilson's 
prohibition of the unrestricted use of the U-boats. 
In all my intercourse with representatives of 
the various strata that make up life in Germany 
— soldiers, sailors, laborers, politicians, clergy- 
men, professors, newspaper men, business men, 
farmers — I did not hear one voice raised for Wil- 
son except that of JMaximilian Harden, the fa- 
mous journalist, whose series on "If I were Mr. 
Wilson" touched and pleased the President 
deeply, but met scant favor in Germany. Not 
even Dr. Helfferich, secretary of state for the 
interior, and a vital factor in keeping the peace 
between the two countries, could see in the Presi- 
dent's utterances any friendliness toward Ger- 
many. He, in common with the others, sought 
to differentiate between the President and the 
American public, which, they believe, wishes a 
greater friendliness to Germany and German 
methods than Wilson has shown. 



90 



CHAPTER IX 

AMEEICA THROUGH GERMAN EYES 

How a pamphlet of enormous circulation treats of Americans — 
"In spirit genuine Englishmen" — "America fears Germany; 
that is why she hates her" — "America will be in economically 
advantageous position after the war" — "Puritanically hypo- 
critical" — "Obsequious to English Lords" — How an American 
writer did not get his name — ^"Monroe Doctrine has been 
despised by all the great powers except Germany" — How Ger- 
mans view our "Anglo-Saxon morality" — Why "republics must 
always fail" — "A tyranny of dollars" — "A history which tells 
of nothing but the lust for gain." 

"We used to think of the Yankee as a long, 
lean, tobacco-chewing sly-boots with a goatee. 
As a greedy money-chaser without ideals, he lived 
for money alone, and to make money he would 
sell his soul to the devil or plant radishes on the 
grave of his parents. 

"In 1898 we took that picture off the wall and 
hung up a new one. It dripped with virtue. 
We gazed with astonishment upon the Ameri- 
cans as 'the people of the futm'e' in 'the land of 
unlimited possibilities' until we felt the helhsh 
effects of American shells." 

97 



INSIDE THE GERMAN EMPIRE 

These are two paragraphs from the first page 
of a little German booklet called "American 
Neutrality," one of the stories of Schiltzengrah- 
enbilcher — trench books — made to fit in the 
pocket of a German soldier when he goes to the 
front. It is a fair sample of the sort of mental 
fodder that is being fed the German people in 
these days. This booklet has attained an enor- 
mous circulation, and helps to account for the 
feeling against America. 

It presents an interesting side-light on Ger- 
man-American relations. The views the writer 
expresses are unquestionably the reactions of a 
large part of the Kaiser's people. They do not 
like us, but, unlike the celebrated apostrophe to 
old Dr. Fell, they have their reasons, and in this 
pamphlet we find some of them. 

Americans will regard the work as a libelous 
caricature, but it is veracious in its rendition of 
the skepticism the Germans feel as to our ideal- 
ism, of their scorn of our character, of their con- 
tempt for our motives, of their belief in our hy- 
pocrisy and lack of sentiment, and of their con- 
viction that we have a mean and sordid interest 

98 



AMERICA THROUGH GERMAN EYES 

in prolonging the war. It is not a pleasing por- 
trait that has been painted, but it is a portrait 
that tj'^pes us to the average German, and so it 
is well for us to look at it. 

With true German thoroughness, the author. 
Otto von Gottberg, starts in on his second page 
to discover the causes of our "unfriendly neu- 
trality" by "observing the American people from 
its hour of birth to the present day through Ger- 
man eyes." On his forty-third page, having con- 
scientiously completed this task, he turns to the 
suj)posed subject of the book, American neu- 
trality, and, after discussing it for five pages, 
closes. 

Germany, he says, has always viewed the 
United States through British eyes. England 
hated us up to 1898; then flattered us, according 
to his view of history, and the Germans aped the 
British. But the British flattered us merely be- 
cause we were looming up as a world power, and 
they hoped to secure American help in "the war 
which they had already planned against the 
growing world power of Germany." And the 
Germans made a mistake in not perceiving that 

99 



INSIDE THE GERMAN EMPIRE 

we were still, as always, "in spirit, if not in blood, 
genuine English," a people "whose history tells 
of nothing but the lust of profit." 

Why is America pro- Ally to-day? In part, 
Gottberg tells the men in the trenches and the 
burghers at home, because our leaders are at heart 
Englishmen; more, "because more American 
capital is invested in British than in German 
undertakings." And further, "while America 
scorns England because she has defeated her in 
the past, she fears Germany. The Americans 
look with hostile and suspicious respect upon the 
skill, industry, and success of German business 
men, engineers, soldiers, and sailors." 

But he does not fear our entry into the war. 
He thinks we can help the Allies more by staying 
out. He has small respect for either our army 
or our navy. He charges that in the Spanish 
War our "commanders, among them Colonel 
Roosevelt, demanded their return in a memorial 
to the secretary of war, to which they cautiously 
signed their names in a cutIc, so that none of 
them should appear to be the ringleader." 

However, he does not despise our economic 
forces, and in view of statements which were made 

100 



AMERICA THROUGH GERMAN EYES 

in the Presidential campaign, this view of a Ger- 
man is interesting. 

"The United States have been and are an eco- 
nomic opponent to us. Whether they preserve 
their neutrahty or not, they will at the end of a 
war which is exhausting Europe be our strongest 
economic competitor. . . . Spared by the war, 
indeed enriched by it, the Americans will, after 
the treaty of peace, be better armed than we for 
competitive struggle, and will bring a simply 
overpowe:^ng commercial supremacy to bear un- 
less we gather and organize all our economic 
forces and put them in the serv^ice of the develop- 
ment of our industries." 

It is interesting, and sometimes a little discon- 
certing, to view American history through the 
eyes of this German. He knows us too thor- 
oughly and dislikes us too completely to make it 
very comfortable. He discusses Puritan hypoc- 
risy in America; the manner in which we pass 
prohibition laws, and then take our whisky be- 
hind the blinds, and tolerate "speak-easies" ; then 
he suddenly turns to other fields. "This hy- 
pocrisy is not confined to drinking. Never see- 
ing the mote in his own eye, the American scolds 

101 



INSIDE THE GERMAN EMPIRE 

about supposed German atrocities in Belgium, 
but lynches negroes and murders Mexicans." 

Even the Revolution did not change our re- 
spect for things English, our German historian 
tells us. 

"Nowhere is the English lotd received with 
more obsequiousness than in America. For dec- 
ades American society knocked at the doors of 
the British aristocracy, which scornfully threw 
the beggars into the street. The American 
Crcesus rubbed his aching bones, but his admira- 
tion for the lords grew. He sacrificed millions 
to secure entry to their homes." 

The Germans use the French word for Gov- 
ernor — Gouverneur. Hence this explanation: 

"The American still loves to decorate his chil- 
dren with the names of the English nobility. An 
American father bore the name of Morris, which 
happened to be the name of a royal governor in 
the days of English rule. So he named his son 
Gouverneur. To-day the boy, a grown man, 
writes under the name of Gouverneur Morris." 
Gottberg does not seem to know that the father's 
name, too, was Gouverneur and that he was the 
grandson of a Gouverneur Morris who helped to 

102 



AMERICA THROUGH GERMAN EYES 

throw the British out of the country some years 
ago. 

It is interesting to learn that the reason the 
British blockaded the coast of Europe from the 
Elbe to Brest in the Napoleonic wars was "to 
destroy American commerce." One had thought 
that a certain desire to isolate Napoleon had had 
something to do with it. The Monroe Doctrine, 
we learn, has been "on occasion despised by every 
great power of Europe with the single exception 
of Germany. But against no country has the 
Monroe Doctrine been quoted so often and so 
arrogantly as against Germany. Here again 
is revealed the Anglo-Saxon custom of showing 
friendly courtesy to the bold and giving kicks to 
the modest." 

The North opposed slavery in the Civil War 
simply because the North was unable to compete 
economically with slave labor, the booklet says, 
and it says further, the transcontinental railroads 
were built not to open up the continent, or to 
reach the gold of California, but to open the way 
to the domination of the Pacific. The Spanish 
War was an "unmitigated war of conquest." 
"As the Anglo-Saxon is accustomed to announce 

103 



INSIDE THE GERMAN EMPIRE 

to the world that he fights only for freedom and 
the rights of humanity, supposed Spanish mis- 
conduct had to pass for the cause of the war. In 
fact, it was again simply the lust for gain which 
led America to go to war. . . . Rich Cuba, with 
her tobacco fields and sugar plantations, became 
free in name only, and Porto Rico and the Philip- 
pines became American provinces. 

"Then, this Government which is to-day 
preaching morality to the world, did not hesitate 
to rob a peaceful neighboring country of the Isth- 
mus of Panama. A revolution, whose outbreak 
American politicians and publicists have assured 
us was paid for in dollars, served as a trans- 
parent excuse." 

Gottberg has small faith in republics. "At 
first glance," he says, "the fact that these free 
states have lived on more than a century is dis- 
concerting. Nature must have one ruler. We 
can see that in the beehive, in a pack of wolves, 
or in the hen-coop. Even the sheep is wise 
enough to know that only one can lead the flock. 
The unnatm-al rule of the many usually arises 
only by the violent overthrow of one ruler and his 
loyal followers. A few adherents of monarchy 

104. 



AMERICA THROUGH GERMAN EYES 

always survive the bloodiest battles of revolution 
as the nucleus of a new upheaval, which will in 
turn destroy the republic. 

"That is why our French neighbors eternally 
vacillate between monarchy and republic. Every 
time Madame la France steps out of bed with the 
left foot first, she knocks her house of state, with 
all its furniture, to pieces. The present French 
republic has lasted over forty years because a 
revolution is hard to organize in a time of univer- 
sal military service. At this very hour the law- 
yers who are rather ruining France than ruling 
her are trembling again for fear of the general 
whom a victorious army could make a monarch. 
Poincare would like to see Joffre win once, but he 
would not care to see too great a victory." And 
this belief in a monarchic restoration in France 
is by no means confined to our author ! 

How a nation can get along when the Presi- 
dent cannot appoint an official without the con- 
sent of the senate is a mystery to this German, 
accustomed to an autocratic Kaiser. 

"The President has not even the right to pre- 
sent drafts of laws to Congress," he says. And 
"when a law is passed, any citizen or group of 

105 



oitx«TH\^ <\^i\ s\v»;>>vst t!\i»t it is iwtxtrarv tv> tho 
Ov\\\stituti<M\ «iul deiuHiul the <U\ns\i>i\ of tl\o S\i- 
jMvuio CvHivt, Uvit thc^ ju<igx\s iu the n«tiou» {^s 
in tlve Stntw {tr^ |Hxlitioiau?4^ ixr v>\ve thoir aj>jHvint* 
uxeut tv> « ^v^rty* \vt\ioh CvHH UsHyc tlvei\\ huiVii\y» 
suvl in the <\nir>v of histvxrv American j\ui^iix\^ 
ksve often shv>\vn thenis^^lve^i su>wptihW tv> hrilv- 
ei\\\ He^KV thi^ jvwer of the ^vurt^ in the 
Tnitexi StHtx\^ ^\»i\ create a rule, ves a tyranny, 
of iUxlUrs* *riie httle nvi^n unist suhjevi liiuuvelf 
tvx exx^ry new Uw> while the hi^^j n\erv*l\ant^ aiui 
stvvk <\Mnv\w\ie?i have the jK^wer to tv^^iht xuk\mu- 
fortahle Uw^" 

^x\wU cvxiutorl* acc\xt\lii\^^ to this a\ithv>rity» is 
tvx be fvHnui in the j«\ti-tnist ti^^t^i* Ue sa>»*55: 

"^l^he^xKxre U^yxseveU, when l*re^sident, wa^ vxne 
of th<^ KHKiest ajul nnv^t inv^>vx"«sive in his i4tt,^cks 
\4i^nst the Vrimuval rictv,' the 'Kinvlits of the 
Sivvk Kxchaxx^v/ iuui the 'swindlers of wiviv>ws 
&i\d or^vlv^nsH* In v^h" of his pnhlic sjHvclies he 
V. ■ .v\i the ra\h\>«d nw^vatt" llarrinian ^he w\xr^i 
of all the bauviit^s,* l>ut whejx the l\e?sivlent 
askevl the 'haiKlit^* fvxr nnxixey for his i>ext cam- 
IxAi^ii^i. he luvitevl e\^« llarriinaix tv> talk with 
hiuv *My vkar Mr. llarrunaiv \\hi ax\vl I are 



AMUMTA 'jni(f>f,Mf MJIMAN KYKH 

fiu'i 'i< rtonncA-jV* 

Stniri/^*: \t/'/:,<tUh on: '\f:).v/!) \y<>ui our pa,*l, 
"ICarly in Ui' ir hi»l/;ry/' v/f; arc t/>)d, **tf<c Arri^^'T'' 
ir:;i.rj;> h-M.vri'A \.\r.)X u riallorj '••ouM noi live v/hhout 
a fjtrofjp/ navy. NotJiirj;^ v/r/ijjfj U; rnon; r/ji*- 
fak' n tfi/jfj f,o \j<yi(:vf: Ujat an allian^;^; HiM/;hing 
Ff'/fr) li' flifj to \\»'^<Ui<\ would friakc H j>fmt\t\fi 
i'<jr ij'. t/> turn our h;i/:k.'> to f.hc h*;a and ^^rf, r/n a» 
a ('.onVirn'jiinl \>'>w(:r withr/ut a Kiron^ f)^;'.'t of 

tijf:ir f;7f;ry ri' ';fi frorrj t[,*;ir own ft/>JI, and yadihey 
■.\ii]'<:r<j\ in ffj'; war-; of \'<)r<\uu power'-i. v\ pc^"/- 
pj'; Jik': our o//rj, which jrnportji indwpcT)5*abJe 
thinpj'j frorrj for'j'^j r;ount,nc.H, v/ouid «;u/fer »IJJ1 
more without a •itron;^ navy.*' 

*'Jt v/ould f/'; a v/orjd';r," r>>tth<;r;^ (•//nnlwiKHf 
"if a \t(jj\>\f^ with a hlhU/ry which UJi.s of nothing 
hut tijc hjst for gain did n^/t, even arnJd the h'erc- 
est hlood .hed of aJI hi.st^/ry, -Sf;ck profit and j[>rofit 
alone.'* 

Not a v/ord of the feeding of JieJgiurn, rjot a 
v/ord of tfje clean.sing of Serbia, not a word of 

]07 



INSIDE THE GERMAN EMPIRE 

Poland or Armenia, not a word of the struggle 
for neutral rights when human lives were set high 
above dollars and cents, and the ruthless U-boats 
curbed. Our history "tells of nothing but the 
lust for gain," and in the midst of the Great 
War we have been seeking "profit and profit 
alone." 

Of this book, written since Pershing's army 
entered Mexico, to which the author calls atten- 
tion, 150,000 copies have been sold in Germany 
alone. That tells something of the German feel- 
ing toward America. To-day it takes a German 
superman to see anything that is good in Amer- 
ica or anything that is fine in the work of the 
President of the United States. 



108 



CHAPTER X 

BAERING THE SPIES FROM THE EMPIRE 

Doors locked against travelers — Strangers closely observed — In- 
vestigations before Americans leave United States, on arrival 
in neutral country, and at the border — The search at the 
frontier — The eleven steps in procuring a passport to leave — 
The remarkably educated waiters in the foreigners' hotels — 
The telephone operator who took a taxi to the races — Spies 
watch Germany's allies too — German agents on the transat- 
lantic liners — German mails via submarines to Spain; thence 
out uncensored. 

Germany to-day is a giant fortress completely- 
ringed by besiegers. Every man, woman, and 
child, all the beasts of bm-den and food, are 
checked and located. The doors have been 
locked against travelers seeking to enter and 
those seeking to depart. Only in exceptional 
cases are visitors received, and in rarer instances 
are natives permitted to leave. 

The police are able at all times to account for 
every one of the population, passport issuance 
has been made extremely diiFicult, the ordeal of 
search and inquest at the frontier is severe and 
thorough, interior travel has been sharply re- 

109 



INSIDE THE GERMAN EMPIRE 

stricted, every foot of the border is guarded 
against illegal entry, obstacles have been put in 
the way of mail and telegraph communications, 
the espionage system has been multiplied in effi- 
ciency and extent — all for the safety of the em- 
pire. And because this is the underlying reason 
for them, the Germans have submitted to the re- 
strictions willingly, and, instead of rebelling, aid 
them. 

The spy mania that swept over war-ridden 
Em'ope two years ago has lessened in its visible 
intensity in Germany, but the precaution against 
spies has been increased. The people have con- 
fidence in the safeguards against espionage, and 
so suspicion has been quieted. How well this 
confidence is justified can be attested by any one 
who has been inside the empire in the second year 
of the war. 

A stranger is under observation from the time 
he enters until he has left. The watchfulness is 
not obtrusive, it is rarely evident ; but it is always 
thorough. Within twelve hours of a visitor's ar- 
rival he must report in person at the nearest 
police station, and every time he makes a railroad 
journey this operation must be repeated. 

110 



BARRING SPIES FROM THE EMPIRE 

When an American undertakes a voyage to 
Germany, the wheels of the imperial Govern- 
ment begin to revolve immediately upon the first 
appHcation for a vise to his passport being made 
in this country. The first question to be an- 
swered concerns the applicant's character, so that 
Germany may feel sure he does not purpose to 
aid or abet her enemies ; and the second, the actual 
need of the business that causes him to make the 
trip. Obtaining a passport from the American 
Government is attended by many formalities, 
and these are renewed when the German consul- 
generals are asked to approve. 

Germany insists that a fortnight intervene 
between the application for a vise and the begin- 
ning of the trip. This is to enable her officials 
to make the necessary investigations, and then to 
communicate the facts to Berlin and to the trav- 
eler's port of arrival. 

All travel between America and Germany is 
through Copenhagen, Stockholm, or Rotterdam. 
From Copenhagen the traveler enters Germany 
through Warnemunde; from Stockholm he en- 
ters through Sassnitz; and from Rotterdam 
through Bentheim. Upon his arrival at one of 

111 



INSIDE THE GERMAN EMPIRE 

the three neutral cities he must begin the proceed- 
ings afresh. 

The method employed in Copenhagen is 
typical of all. Armed with his passport and 
such letters of reference as he may have, the 
traveler visits the pass bm'eau of the consul-gen- 
eral. As that official's office hours are limited, 
and as there is always a crowd demanding atten- 
tion, he probably has a wait of two days before 
his turn is reached. When his number is finally 
called he is cross-examined in detail to make cer- 
tain that he is entitled to the papers in his pos- 
session, and after j)resenting six recent photo- 
graphs of himself he is told to retm'n in three 
days for instructions as to when he may proceed. 
This delay is to permit the consul to comnmnicate 
with Berlin to learn if any objection has arisen 
to the entrance of the traveler. If none exists, 
he is told he may take the train at the expiration 
of another five days, the extra time being used to 
forward the duplicate passports and photographs 
and other records to Warnemunde, the port of 
entry, on the Baltic Sea. 

There are embargoes in Denmark, as well as 
in Sweden and Holland, on what a traveler to 

112 



BARRING SPIES FROM THE EMPIRE 

Germany may take with him. But these are not 
enforced with great strictness against America. 
However pleasant this laxity may be before ar- 
rival on German soil, it becomes doubly so in con- 
trast to the severity with which every minute reg- 
ulation is put into force by the Kaiser's officers, 

Upon arrival at Warnemunde (the methods 
throughout the empire are standardized, and are 
the same at every other entrance point) the trav- 
elers are shunted into a long low wooden shed, 
carrying their hand baggage, having previously 
sm'rendered the checks for their heavier luggage. 
Upon entering the place they are given numbers, 
and in return surrender then' passports to brisk, 
keen-eyed, non-commissioned officers, whose effi- 
ciency has been increased by long practice. 

Once in the room, the travelers are not permit- 
ted to leave except through one door, and that 
they pass only when their numbers are called. 
Barred windows and armed sentries prevent any 
trifling with this system. The numbers are 
called one by one except in the case of husbands 
and wives, who are permitted to go through to- 
gether — and when this is reached, the traveler 
passes through into a second office, where he is 

113 



INSIDE THE GERMAN EMPIRE 

questioned as to his identity and the photographs 
on the passports are verified. 

While he is undergoing this questioning he is 
being overheard and carefully watched by num- 
bers of the geheim-Polizei (secret police), some 
of whom are in uniform and others of whom 
masquerade in civilian attire as new arrivals. If 
there is any error in his papers it is developed at 
this point, and he is at once turned about and 
sent back to Copenhagen. But if it is a case of 
alles in Ordnung (everything in order), it is so 
reported, and he is ushered into another room, 
where, having passed the first two inqiiisitorial 
chambers, he is submitted to the grand ordeal, 
that of search. 

And what a search it is ! Unless one's creden- 
tials are exceptionally strong, one is stripped and 
one's mouth, ears, nose, and other parts of the 
body examined. One's fountain pen is emptied, 
every piece of paper taken away, including visit- 
ing-cards, and even match-boxes are confiscated. 
Finger rings, umbrellas, and canes are inspected. 
If bandages are worn, these must be stripped off, 
too. No distinction is drawn between men and 

114f 



BARRING SPIES FROM THE EJVIPIRE 

women beyond the fact that women are of course 
examined before female inspectors. 

The bodily search having been completed, that 
of the clothing is begun. Every article of ap- 
parel is felt over carefully and exposed to a 
strong light for fear there may be writing on the 
lining. If there is the slightest reason for sus- 
picion, the travelers are given a sponge bath of 
water with a large admixture of citric acid, which 
has the effect of making apparent any writing on 
the body that may have been done with invisible 
ink. The Germans say that these precautions 
have been necessitated by the ingenious ruses em- 
ployed by spies, whose entrance into the country 
is considered a greater menace than is their de- 
parture, since in entering they bring with them 
instructions to their confederates already within 
the empire awaiting orders. 

The next step is the examination of the bag- 
gage, and this is done in a manner to make the 
American customs inspection seem childish. The 
interior and exterior measurements of the trunks 
are taken to guard against false sides, tops, and 
bottoms, and then one by one every article the 

115 



INSIDE THE GERMAN EMPIRE 

trunks contain is put through a separate inspec- 
tion. 

All foods that are brought in are seized and 
turned in to the governmental depot, from which 
they are distributed for later use. Until Sep- 
tember, 1916, it was permitted to import food 
from neutral countries, but this was eventually 
made taboo on the ground that it gave the 
wealthy an unfair advantage and violated the 
principle of the German food laws, which are 
predicated upon equitable distribution. 

Every sort of liquid is confiscated. The per- 
fimies of the women are poured into a big tub, 
and such liquors as the men may be carrying are 
treated in a similar manner. The contents of 
travelers' alcohol or spirit lamps are carefully 
emptied into air-tight containers for later use. 
The reason for the drastic regulation against tak- 
ing any liquid, however small the quantity, into 
Germany was the danger of the fact that high 
explosives such as nitroglycerine can be carried 
in small vessels. On several occasions, the Ger- 
mans say, railroads and bridges have been blown 
up by the enemy travelers who carried the means 
of destruction in this way. In this connection 

116 



BARRING SPIES FROM THE EMPIRE 

the additional precaution is taken by the authori- 
ties of prohibiting all travelers from putting their 
heads out the windows of the coupes while cross- 
ing bridges. 

All written or printed matter, such as books, 
newspapers, pamphlets, magazines, is talien 
away. Upon request the traveler may have 
these forwarded to his point of destination after 
they have been censored and deleted. As every 
point on the German border is carefully guarded, 
it is virtually impossible for any one to enter 
the country except at stated points. All the 
roads are closed, and the border fields are care- 
fully patrolled. 

Upon his arrival in Berlin, or wherever he may 
be bound, the traveler must present himself in 
person at the nearest police station. There his 
passj)ort is again vised, and he is given official 
permission to remain for a given period. But 
every time he makes a trip he must report him- 
self going and coming. 

The interior regulations are identical for both 
stranger and resident. Every possible difficulty 
is thrown in the way of travel for the purpose of 
discouraging it. The object of this is to save 

117 



INSIDE THE GERMAN EMPIRE 

the people money and to prevent miscalculations 
in the food supply of the various districts into 
which the country is divided. At the same time 
the danger of espionage is reduced. 

This method of making travel difficult has been 
reduced to a scientific formula. There are pre- 
cisely eleven separate operations required before 
one can obtain a passport carrying with it per- 
mission to leave the country. And a minimum 
of at least ten days must elapse between the time 
one makes his initial application and the time 
one is permitted to board the train. Of this 
period from three to four days are necessary to 
unwind the red tape preliminary to obtaining 
the passport, the rest of the time being required 
to forward the necessary information to the point 
by which one leaves the empire. 

The first step taken on the road of departure 
is to visit the police precinct, where, after watch- 
ing the issuance to the precinct dwellers of meat- 
and bread-cards, of special permission to buy re- 
stricted merchandise, of state health insurance 
and employment insurance books being stamped, 
you finally get the chance to explain the purpose 
of your call. Then you are given a card and told 

118 



BARRING SPIES FROM THE EMPIRE 

to present it at the police presidency building. 
After wandering through a maze of corridors 
and being referred to different offices, you finally 
reach a barred window where one man is leisurely 
attending to the wants of three or four hundred 
people. If you are lucky, you get into personal 
communication with the gentleman behind the 
wicket after a wait of four or five hours. 

After he learns that you are planning to go 
away, he takes your name and address, looks at 
your passport, — nothing is really official in Ger- 
many to-day unless your passport is called into 
action with every question, — and closes the inter- 
view by giving you a formidable-looking three- 
page application blank, not printed, but written 
in German script and then manifolded, which 
makes it doubly difficult to read. 

The first form is translated on page 120. 

Having filled out the questionnaire, the next 
step is to pay another call upon your friend the 
police sergeant at the precinct, whom you visit 
in company of those who can vouch for your iden- 
tity. In solemn and impressive manner, always 
slow and dignified, a record is made of the exam- 
ination-slip, and you are handed another which 

119 



INSIDE THE GERMAN EMPIRE 



Vise No For Pass No , 

QUESTION SHEET 

For the preparation of vis^s for passports to foreign 
countries. 

Name of applicant 

When and where born 

Occupation 

Residence (name of street and number of house) 

Nationality (present and past) 

Resident in Berlin since 

(Suburbs excluded.) 

Goal of j ourney 

Purpose of j ourney 

(Also of residence here.) 

Length of journey 

What frontier station will be used — 

(a) In going? 

(b) In coming? 

When wiU the frontier be crossed — 

(a) In going? 

(b) In coming? i 

When was the applicant last abroad — and where? 

(The last pass should be inclosed.) 

When first here? 

What written material have you which will prove the neces- 
sity of the journey? 

(Original papers should be inclosed.) 
I declare the above statements to be true. 

Berlin 

Full name 

Residence 

This question sheet is to be transmitted to the passport 
bureau by the competent residential police precinct. 



120 



BARRING SPIES FROM THE EMPIRE 

must be filled out, and then, armed with these 
two documents, you make your second assault 
upon the Polizei-Praesidium. This is the begin- 
ning of an attack that requires from two to four 
days to execute successfully, and involves visits 
to no fewer than seven different offices, each sep- 
arate from the others by long miles of halls 
devoid of signs to discom'age or encourage you 
by telling how near or how far you are from the 
offices you seek, and endless flights of stairs, nar- 
row and hard to climb, for such modernities as 
elevators are scorned. 

Leg-weary and shoe-worn, you are finally fin- 
ished with the various recorders who have passed 
upon your right to a passport, and conceahng 
the precious paper securely about your person, 
you are now ready to make your trip — ready 
except for the last, final, and ultimate (or so you 
think) proceeding, which consists of ''ahmel- 
du7ig" (announcing departure) to yoiu* friend at 
the precinct station, whom you are surprised to 
find has not become a veteran with a long gray 
beard in the seeming ages that have passed since 
you were first compelled to make his acquaint- 
ance. 

121 



INSIDE THE GERMAN EMPIRE 

And even now you are not through, for as you 
pass the controls through which the train runs 
you are under the necessity of showing your 
passport to each of the inspectors. When you 
reach the point of departure from German ter- 
ritory, precisely the same method is followed in 
examination and inspection as you found upon 
entrance to the empire. 

Five departments of the police are required 
to look after the spy-protection system. The 
regular police does the checking of the strangers, 
the secret police takes up their movements after 
they are within the hmits of the country, the 
political secret service engages itself with the 
political activities of the visitors, and the or- 
dinary military police and secret military agents 
take up such work as falls without the limits of 
the other three organizations. 

In every hotel are to be met spies in the form 
of guests, waiters, chambermaids, telephone op- 
erators, and bartenders. In the early part of 
the war these last proved their worth often, for 
men otherwise cautious and reticent became out- 
spoken under the influence of a few Scotches or 

122 



BARRING SPIES FROM THE EMPIRE 

cock-tails, which are still in vogue in Germany 
despite their American origin. 

At one of the biggest of the Berlin hotels it 
is a noticeable fact that all the floor waiters are 
young, active, highly intelhgent men. When 
they are asked why they are not serving at the 
front all have excuses on the score of health. 
The truth is that they are all governmental 
agents whose duty it is to familiarize themselves 
with the details of every visitor's business. That 
they do well. Every stranger's papers are thor- 
oughly investigated, no matter how securely 
they may be locked up, before he has been in 
the city two days, assuming he leaves them in 
his room. Two members of the American dip- 
lomatic corps who made short stays in Berlin 
can tell singular stories on this point. 

The chief of the floor waiters at this hotels — 
and it is illustrative of all the others — is a pol- 
ished-mannered young fellow of about thirty- 
two who speaks English, French, Italian, Span- 
ish, and Danish with the same facility that he 
reads them, and he reads them as well as he does 
his native German. I noticed the chief of the 

123 



INSIDE THE GERMAN EMPIRE 

telephone operators, who while discharging the 
duties of his lowly job wore livery, attending 
the races in an English sport-coat, with glasses 
strung over his shoulders, and he went to and 
from the course in a taxicab, the height of lux- 
ury in war-time Berhn. One would hardly credit 
his income solely to the measly wages he re- 
ceived from his work at the switch-board. He, 
too, as well as his assistants, was an accomplished 
linguist. 

It must not be thought that espionage is con- 
fined to the Americans. On the contrary, even 
the subjects of Germany's allies receive this at- 
tention. Austrian, Bulgarian, or Turkish, it 
makes no difference; all are put under the scru- 
tiny of the secret eyes and ears of the Kaiser. 
Almost it is more difficult to obtain a passport 
permitting one to travel to Austria than it is 
to obtain one for a journey to America, and the 
examination at the Austrian border is just as 
severe as at the frontier between Germany and 
Denmark. 

German spies travel on all the transatlantic 
liners running from Denmark, Sweden, Nor- 
way, and Holland to America, and back again. 

124 



BARRING SPIES FROM THE EMPIRE 

They find out as much as they can about their 
fellow-travelers, so that the secret police may be 
forewarned as to whom and what they are to re- 
ceive. These agents are rarely employed by the 
Gennan Government for the secret transmission 
of mail ; that is usually done by men of solid rep- 
utation, American or other neutrals who are 
persuaded to accept the task on the ground of a 
service to the empire. Obviously, they must be 
violently pro-German before they are asked to 
assume the undertaking. 

The difiiculty of communication is one of the 
severe hardships that the German Government 
and people suffer. Mails to and from the em- 
pire are seized by the Allies, and if delivered at 
all, are so belated as to make them valueless. 
Only such cables as the Allies choose to pass are 
permitted transmission. Male Germans are not 
permitted to travel on the seas. So German 
communication is restricted to the wireless, to 
supposedly neutral couriers, and to submarines, 
both of the commercial type as the Deutschland, 
and of the war type, which have been secretly 
conveying important German mail to Spanish 
waters, where it is loaded upon friendly neutral 

125 



INSIDE THE GERMAN EMPIRE 

vessels, which carry it into Spanish ports and 
thence forward it to America and other points. 
This last method has been a carefully guarded 
secret of the German Government. Mail sent 
out by Spain is not seized and censored by the 
Allies. 



126 



CHAPTER XI 

THE HOBGOBLIN OF GERMAN DUMPING 

Germany fosters combination — The necessity for internal economic 
readjustment — Prohibition of emigration — Alfred Lohmann, 
father of the commercial U-boats, says Germany is in no con- 
dition to seek foreign markets — American exports and imports 
to and from Germany — Shipbuilding only obvious prepara- 
tion for future, but reports exaggerated for foreign effect — 
American firms in Germany doing well — Lack of raw materials 
in Germany — Impairment of German credit. 

In the commercial world to-day Germany 
stands at the opposite pole from America. We 
enforce competition; she legalizes combinations. 
We restrict the participation of the Government 
in business; she demands a share in every one of 
her trades. We have taken a long step forward 
in the erection of a national trade commission to 
regulate competition ; she has estabhshed bureaus 
that eliminate all competitive forms. 

The empire's industrial and financial condi- 
tion is of most interest to America in so far as 
we are actually affected by it. And the chief 
effect over which this country is concerned is the 

127 



INSIDE THE GERMAN EMPIRE 

matter of "dumping" that many believe will come 
after the war from all the belligerents. Mostly 
the fear is directed against Germany because 
of her organization ability and because of the 
very combinations she is now bringing about. 
"Dumping" means the throwing into our mar- 
kets of enormous stocks of merchandise, sold 
below cost to win our markets away from home 
manufacturers. 

If this plan is actually projected in Germany, 
it is effectually concealed from the visitor. 
They tell you in Germany — the leading indus- 
trialists of the country — ^that for ten, perhaps 
more, years to come Germany and the other bel- 
ligerents, instead of being able to make goods 
for the outside world, will not be able to supply 
their own demands. She and the others, they 
say, will need America, and the fear is that Ger- 
many will have to fight for her domestic markets 
instead of reaching out for the markets of 
America. 

It is evident that the empire to-day is far more 
concerned with the m-eat difficulties of economic 
readjustment after the war than she is with 
plans for external trade conquests. Apart from 

1^8 



THE HOBGOBLIN OF GERMAN DUMPING 

the financial troubles, her bankers and merchants 
say she will face a heavy scarcity of labor that 
not even the employment of women in work 
heretofore restricted to men will obviate. The 
high price labor will command is certain to re- 
strict output, it is feared, and as one step 
toward remedying this condition, Germany and 
Austria-Hungary will pass laws restricting if 
not prohibiting, all emigration. These state- 
ments are made with authority, and thus another 
chimera of the pessimists who foresee a great in- 
flux of immigration is wiped out. It must be 
remembered that Germany now uses from one 
and a quarter to one and a half million prisoners 
in her labor. The supply will end with peace. 

"Beyond what the empire and her alhes 
actually need for immediate consumption," said 
Alfred Lohmann of Bremen, who conceived and 
executed the plan of sending the commercial U- 
boat Deutschland here and who is one of the 
big men in the German business world to-day, 
"our industries are at a standstill. We have no 
labor or money for extra production and no mar- 
ket, if we had these two necessaries. It is pure 
bosh to talk of Germany piling up great stores 

12^ 



INSIDE THE GERMAN EMPIRE 

of merchandise to unload after the war. It is 
obviously impossible. Wliere are we to get the 
raw material when we are hard put to it for mate- 
rial for our every-day necessities? And how 
can we afford to invest money in propositions 
that must be unproductive of profits for a long 
time to come, and which are actually costly in 
the loss of interest on the money so tied up ? 

"Germany is busy to-day, but her business is 
all for to-day. Her commerce now has a 
national service to render; it does not think of 
world development and trade expansion. And 
for a long time after the war we shall be busy 
binding up om' own commercial wounds. We 
shall bind them up, never feai*, but it is idle to 
talk of or fear Germany's immediate competition 
in your market or any of the other big selling 
places. We shall recover more rapidly than the 
other nations because our organization is better. 
When we have recovered, that is another story; 
but I do not beheve that even after our recovery 
we shall be so much in competition with America 
as we were before. Our main markets will be 
found along the lines of our national develop- 
ment." 

130 




' International Kiliii Service, Inc 



Du. ALFRED LOIIMANX 



THE HOBGOBLIN OF GERMAN DUMPING 

By that phrase Mr. Lohmann meant through 
the Balkans into Asia. He is one of the many 
Germans who beUeve that his country's future 
alhanee will be with Russia. Although half 
English, being the son of an English mother, he 
fears that for many years to come Germany and 
England will be at swords' points. 

America's trade with Germany shows one 
great feature, that we can more readily do with- 
out Germany than she without us. Our table 
of imports and exports since 1912 shows: 

Imports. Exports. 

1912 $186,042,644 $330,450,830 

1913 184,211,352 351,930,541 

1914 149,389,366 158,294,986 

1915 44,953,285 11,788,852 

1916 (Jan.-Apr.) 3,141,791 58,646 

[The- sharp decrease in trade noted in 1916 is due to 
the tightening British blockade and the blacklist.] 

An analysis of our imports shows our biggest 
bill to have been for laces arid embroideries. 
This ran about $7,000,000 a year, but even this 
had been decreasing in volume as our domestic 
manufactures increased. The same is true with 
most of the leading articles which the United 

133 



INSIDE THE GERMAN EMPIRE 

States imported from Germany. The other big 
items in our bill were coal-tar colors and dyes, 
about $6,000,000 a year; china and earthenware, 
nearly $4,000,000; raw furs, $5,000,000, and 
dressed furs, $2,500,000; calfskins, $5,000,000; 
crude india rubber, anywhere from $4,000,000 to 
$7,000,000; toys, about $7,000,000; wood pulp, 
about $2,500,000; woolens, $4,000,000; leather 
gloves, over $3,000,000; and still wines, $1,000,- 
000 a year. 

Cotton dominated our exports to Germany. 
In peace times Germany used to buy nearly 
$170,000,000 worth of cotton from us every 
year. Next came copper, from $40,000,000 to 
$50,000,000; lard, from $15,000,000 to $20,000,- 
000; wheat, from $7,000,000 to $12,000,000, de- 
pending on the crops; with kerosene oil, rosin, 
corn, agricultural implements, lubricating oil, to- 
bacco, and upper leather between $3,000,000 and 
$5,000,000 a year. 

Of the three and a half million dollar imports 
from Germany into the port of New York dur- 
ing the first six months of 1916, it is interesting 
to note that knit underwear was the largest item. 

134} 



THE HOBGOBLIN OF GERMAN DUMPING 

The second in value was manufactured products 
of flax, and the third, miscellaneous chemicals. 
Other items on the list included sugar beet seed, 
cotton laces and embroideries, linen embroideries, 
china and earthenware, hops, textile machinery, 
leather gloves, lithographic paper, photographic 
paper, other paper stock, musical instruments, 
and toys. 

There were no exports from New York to Ger- 
many in 1916 except the negligible sum of $58,- 
646. 

The only obvious preparation for the future 
is the projected shipping program, but there is 
reason to beheve that many of the announce- 
ments on this point have been made largely to 
cause foreign irritation. I was told authorita- 
tively that almost every ship -yard in Germany 
is working on government commissions ; but it is 
said, and the statement is credited in England, 
that the Hamburg- American line has laid down 
a colossal 50,000-ton steamer, the Bismarck; a 
30,000-tonner to be known as the Tirpitz, and 
three 22,000-ton ships; that the North German 
Lloyd has laid down two sister-ships of 35,000 

135 



INSIDE THE GERMAN EMPIRE 

tons, two more of 16,000 each, and twelve of 42,- 
000 tons each, and that other German Hnes are 
correspondingly active. 

The American foms that do business in Ger- 
many selling shoes, type-writers, cash-registers, 
cameras, oils, machinery, metals, cotton and cot- 
ton goods, meat foods, tobacco, fm's, and other 
manufactured goods, despite the fact that they 
are getting few shipments from this country, are 
doing well now. They have adapted themselves 
to conditions and are sometimes meeting the situ- 
ation in a way that enables them to show profit 
even to-day. But their future prospects — ad- 
vance orders booked — are strong. So it looks, 
with the national Government strengthening the 
hands of our export trade, as if Germany will 
face dumping from us rather than we from Ger- 
many. 

One highly important factor in connection 
with the possibility of German dumping is to be 
found in the absence of raw materials within the 
empire. Before she can undertake any vast 
manufacturing enterprises with the purpose of 
invading foreign markets, she must be supplied 
with the raw stuffs. This will require enormous 

136 



THE HOBGOBLIN OF GERMAN DUMPING 

credits in the external markets, and because of 
her staggering debts she is bound, in the fii'st 
years following peace, to have difficulty in mak- 
ing the necessary arrangements. 

Obviously, her credit will by no means be what 
it was before her enormous war commitments, 
which already approximate sixteen bilhon dol- 
lars and are growing, without including the na- 
tional debt standing at the outset of the conflict, 
which was about five billion dollars. And the 
obstacles in the way of foreign extension to Ger- 
man credits will not be made smoother by the 
antagonistic influences of the British and French 
banking afliliations, which have already begun 
the construction of an impasse in the financial 
centers of tlie United States and South Amer- 
ican countries. 



137 



CHAPTER XII 

BUSINESS BEHIND THE BATTLE LINE 

Central purchasing and distributing bureaus for food and other 
necessaries fundamental to Germany's present economic or- 
ganization — The Imperial Transition Commission — Price dicta- 
tion — No repudiation of debts expected — The German war 
loans and how they are floated — "The strategy of the check- 
book" — Autocratic Socialism — Germany's national wealth and 
that of the Allies — Low rate of unemployment — Increased 
number of industrial laborers — Production of iron — Freight 
revenues greater than in time of peace — The gold reserve in 
the Reichsbank — Loans floated at home — The rate of exchange 
— The Reichsbank's watch on waste — The Labor Dictatorship 
and the civilian army of work — Operation of the "Man-Power" 
Act. The German idea of democracy — "Women to the front." 

The main point in Germany's present eco- 
nomic system is readiness to meet her immediate 
emergencies and those of an internal nature aris- 
ing after the war. She has created state-con- 
trolled purchasing and distributing bureaus. 
There are Central Einkauf-Bilros and distribut- 
ing bureaus for grain, milk, eggs, butter, meat, 
fish, and other edibles, and for wool, cotton, 
metals, leather, oils, and the other great raw 
staples. The food bureaus will end with the end 

138 



BEHIND THE BATTLE LINE 

of the war, but governmental buying of the raw 
stuffs, it is expected, will be continued for as 
long a time as the system proves efficient, which 
will be until the method threatens to stifle in- 
dividual initiative. Every one with whom I 
spoke in Germany believes that at least some of 
the things in the present regulation will be con- 
tinued because the benefits are so great. 

These central purchasing bureaus of the 
empire are a thoroughgoing example of the 
highly organized conditions existing to-day. 
Every plant using any of the great raw staples 
is recorded in the district bureau, where the rea- 
son for the plant's existence must be given; it 
must be shown that the plant is engaged in 
manufactures needed for military or commercial 
pm'poses. The factories show their advance 
orders to the divisional chiefs and receive an 
allotment of the raw stuffs. The needs of the 
empire are lumped and the Central Bilro in Ber- 
lin divides the supplly according to these allot- 
ments. If the supply on hand is sufficient, no 
extra purchases are made, but if the immediate 
needs threaten to pull the reserves below a certain 
point, new purchases are made in accessible for- 

139 



INSIDE THE GERMAN EMPIRE 

eign markets; or if no supply is available, the 
distribution is curtailed on proportionate bases. 

Many of the big industrialists of Germany 
believe that this system can be profitably con- 
tinued after peace. They see in the method a 
means of regulating prices through their enor- 
mous purchasing power. For example, if all the 
copper, amounting to hundi-eds of millions of 
pounds, that Germany needs annually were to be 
bought by one bureau, the magnitude of the 
operation would be such as to enable it in effect 
to dictate the price it would be willing to pay. 
It may be noted that this system is substantially 
that employed by the Allies now, as was shown 
by the recent order of 500,000,000 pounds that 
was placed in the American market. 

The question of continuing this method, and 
other economic questions that will arise after 
peace comes, are to be handled by an imperial 
transition commission. This commission will not 
only deal with the industrial and economic situa- 
tion, but will also be required to solve the finan- 
cial problems that Germany must face. 

Although it is admitted that the heavy drain 
upon German capital and industry will leave 

140 



BEHIND THE BATTLE LINE 

them somewhat crippled, bankers of the empire 
feel certain that there is no chance that the Ger- 
man debts will be repudiated. They feel con- 
fident also that England will be able to meet her 
obligations, but they are not so sure about France 
and Russia. 

Germany's bankers pretend to have no fear of 
the present system of credit pyramiding. They 
make a virtue of the fact that virtually all of Ger- 
many's war money has been raised in Germany 
itself, and seem not to be worried by the fact that 
each new issue of war bonds is purchasable with 
bonds of the last issue, a method which has been 
described as being like a snake swallowing itself. 

Germany's war loans now amount to 47,000,- 
000,000 marks (nominally about $11,750,000,- 
000) , with a margin of 5,000,000,000 more marks 
"credit" voted by the Reichstag. With the new 
credit of 12,000,000,000 marks asked for in the 
summer of 1916, which will be obtained by 
another war loan to be floated in the spring of 
1917, the total war credits voted will reach 
64,000,000,000 marks (about $16,000,000,000). 
To the fifth loan, closed in September, 1916, 
which brought out 10,652,000,000 marks, over 

141 



INSIDE THE GERMAN EMPIRE 

4,000,000 people subscribed. They call that the 
"people's loan" in Germany. 

In this connection it is interesting to note how 
the German Government has used clever press- 
agent methods in bringing out the loans. They 
are masters of the "strategy of the check-book" 
as well as of the battle-field. 

The first loan was floated at the very beginning 
of the war amid scenes of wild enthusiasm, when 
von Kluck's army was marching on Paris, and 
the certainty of immediate victory swelled every 
German breast. The second came a few months 
later, coinciding with the complete subjection of 
northern France and Belgium, when the German 
battle-line had been flung from the Alps to the 
sea; the third followed close upon Hindenburg's 
steam-roller advance through Poland, when Rus- 
sia seemed ciiished and helpless ; the titanic strug- 
gle at Verdun began as the fourth was offered, 
and the war loan grew as the outlying forts fell. 
The fifth came with the promotion of Hinden- 
burg, the iron man of Germany, to the supreme 
command of all her armies. 

The necessity of floating another big popular 
loan was said to be one of the reasons why Fal- 

142 



BEHIND THE BATTLE LINE 

kenhayn was replaced in August by Hindenburg. 
That there was more than a httle truth in the 
statement is shown by the fact that no sooner had 
Hindenburg taken hold than all the papers car- 
ried big signed statements from him command- 
ing, cajoling, pleading that the people subscribe. 
And all the advertisements were written around 
Hindenburg. It was good pyscholog}^, and the 
idolatry of Hindenburg was coined into billions 
of marks. 

The sixth credit was authorized when the 
Allies' Somme offensive had failed to break 
through the German lines and when the Germans 
were beginning to overrun Roumania. 

This new war loan was based upon the Ger- 
man reckoning that their daily war needs amount 
to about $13,000,000 a day. The Germans say 
that .the Allies are spending more than twice as 
much. 

The contention of the German bankers regard- 
ing their ability to meet at least a part of the 
increased demands that will be made upon Ger- 
many's financial resources is supported by the 
great increase of the savings-bank deposits, 
which in the first eight months of 1916 showed a 

143 



INSIDE THE GERMAN EMPIRE 

gain of 1,710,000,000 marks. Since the war 
began, about 400,000 new accounts have been 
opened, and in the first two years of the war the 
savings-banks showed almost $1,000,000,000 
excess of deposits over withdrawals. 

Figures are less interesting than the human 
factors behind them. Everybody in Germany 
saves. They save on automobiles ; there are vir- 
tually no private cars left. They save on rent, 
food, clothes, and other life supplies held down 
by government regulation. They take pride in 
saving. 

The autocratic Socialism typical of Germany 
to-day is helping toward this end. It has sys- 
tematized German life; it has established pur- 
chasing and distribution bureaus for the neces- 
saries of individual and national life ; it regulates 
the labor supply; it puts a check on the rise in 
prices. The biggest silk house in Berlin was 
closed for a week in 1916 because it had been 
overcharging. Although it was closed and could 
receive no customers, all its regular expenses — 
rent, light, and wages — had to be paid. 

Racing and playing the stock markets are stiU 
indulged in in Germany and Austria. Many 

144j 




© Brown & Dawson 
Dr. KARL HELFFERICII. SECRETARY 
INTERIOR 



OF STATE FOR THE 



BEHIND THE BATTLE LINE 

stocks are cheap, paying ten, fifteen, twenty, and 
thirty per cent, dividends, but no one knows how 
long it will be before the present small govern- 
ment share in the profits will be so much in- 
creased that it will virtually wipe out all but a 
narrow margin of gain. 

Germany has paid almost all her war expenses 
through war loans. The taxes have not been 
heavily increased. The Prussian income-tax 
has been lifted, on an average, only seven to 
eleven per cent. This system merely defers pay- 
ment to posterity, but against this load the Ger- 
man economists say that the regular increase 
in wealth in the empire will act as compensa- 
tion. 

German estimates of the national wealth of 
Germany, France, and Great Britain at the be- 
ginning of the war are as follows: 

Billion marks. 

Germany 330-390 

France ^00-260 

Great Britain and Ireland 300-360 

The German national wealth was distributed 
thus: 



147 



INSIDE THE GERMAN EMPIRE 

Billion marks. 
Goods movable and immovable, insured 

against fire 200-240 

Real property 70-100 

Mines underground 5-6 

Goods shipped, shipping, coin, and bul- 
lion 6 

Public property (railways, &c.) 30-40 

Investments abroad 20-25 

These estimates are the averages made by 
three financial economists, Helfferich, Steinman- 
Bucher, and A. Hesse. One of the great things 
the war has done for Germany has been to make 
her virtually self-sufficient. To-day she depends 
on herself or her allies for all her food supplies 
and raw materials. She needs nickel and rubber, 
but there is no lack of copper. Iron and coal 
and zinc she produces within her own limits. 
The food stuffs that she raises, combined with the 
aid she gets from her allies, are made to do. The 
average rise in prices on food stuffs is put at 
about seventy per cent., which the Germans say 
is less than in England or France. It is high on 
cattle and hog meat, but low on vegetables and 
certain grains. 

148 



BEHIND THE BATTLE LINE 

Regarding industrial conditions in Germany 
generally, I had an official statement prepared 
in the interior department and approved by Dr. 
Helfferich. The fii'st part of the statement 
deals with food supplies, which are considered 
in the next chapter. It points out that the pres- 
ent "war of exhaustion" is not waged on the Ger- 
man food alone, but through the limitation of 
food, on the German health; and it shows that 
the number of sick persons drawing sick benefits 
from the State Kranken-Kassen (health insur- 
ance) is much lower than in times of peace, not- 
withstanding the great number of old persons 
who are now represented among the workers. 

"On the 1st of January, 1916," the statement 
says, "one hundred per cent, of the members of 
the Kranken-Kassen were employed. [In the- 
ory, every worker in Germany is a member of the 
Kranken-Kassen; if the official statement is to 
be believed, it shows that there was absolutely no 
unemployment on January 1.] Since January 
1, the percentage of employment has been slowly 
lowered, being 95.7 on July 1. 

"The number of females employed through- 
out the empire has in the last two years been 

14?9 



INSIDE THE GERMAN EMPIRE 

greatly increased, although in 1916 it showed a 
smaller increment of increase than in 1915. 

"The returns from 300 varied industrial un- 
dertakings show the number of workers in June, 
1915, to have been 328,786, and in June, 1916, 
386,565, an increase of seventeen and six-tenths 
per cent. The increase is uniform for male and 
female employees. In the machinery industry 
the increase in employment is twenty-six per 
cent, and in the iron and metal industry ahnost 
twenty-three per cent. There has been a heavy 
relapse recently in the textile and wood industry, 
but the last named is scarcely representative, 
since there are only five firms now in opera- 
tion, and these firms are employing about 1000 
>vorkmen, so that the instance affords no real 
proof." 

It is then stated that the actual number of un- 
employed in the empire to-day is two and five- 
tenths per cent., which is a very much smaller 
unemployment figure than was the case in June, 
1914. 

"The production of raw iron for the first half 
of the year 1916," the statement continues, 
"shows an increase of 17.5 per cent, and the cast 

150 



BEHIND THE BATTLE LINE 

iron production an increase of 25 per cent, com- 
pared with the same period of 1915. 

"The income of the Prussian-Hessian state 
railways from freight revenues exclusively was 
only 12.7 per cent., smaller than that in the cor- 
responding months of peace times — the first six 
months of 1916 compared with the fii'st six 
months of 1914. Since December, 1915, the 
freight revenues have been higher than in peace 
times. December, 1916, compared with Decem- 
ber, 1913, shows an increase of 8 per cent.; Jan- 
uary, 1916, compared with January, 1914, an 
increase of 10 per cent.; March, 1916, compared 
with March, 1914, 12 per cent.; May, 1916, with 
May, 1914, 10 per cent.; June, 1916, with June, 

1914, 8 per cent. A six months' comparison 
between war and peace times shows an average 
increase of about 10 per cent., notwithstanding 
the fact that the tariff for transportation has been 
considerably lowered." 

Regarding the German export of goods, the 
statement says that in six months from January 
to June, 1916, it exceeded by more than twenty- 
five per cent, the volume for the same period for 

1915, About money it says : 

151 



INSIDE THE GERMAN EMPIRE 

"The low price of Reichsmarks in all neutral 
countries has been a cheap and common piece of 
parade for the international Franco-British slan- 
der-propaganda, and is still being made so despite 
its hollowness and lack of truth." It is pointed 
out that the note issue by the German Reichs- 
hank is covered by more than a one-third reserve 
in gold, "whereas the gold cover of the Bank of 
France," the statement continues, "has decreased 
virtually 62 per cent, in ratio to note issue." 

In conclusion it is said : 

"Germany has, in round figures, paid seven- 
eighths of her war expenses with war loans that 
were placed within the empire through the broad- 
est participation of the people. The interest on 
these loans has been covered in part by the 'inter- 
est debt notes,' and in a few months these floating 
notes will be transformed into regular loans. 
What other state can show its war expenditures 
as having been loaned by the home country 
alone?" 

The reference made in the official statement to 
the depression of the Reichsmark, touches on a 
matter over which the Reichsbank is much con- 
cerned. Ignoring the rates of exchange quoted 

152 



BEHIND THE BATTLE LINE 

on German money in other markets, the Beichs- 
bank in Berlin every day announces the official 
exchange rate and compels acceptance of this 
rate by those buying German money. For ex- 
ample, at the end of September, 1916, I had oc- 
casion to cash a check on America in Berlin. I 
got for each dollar only five marks, forty pfen- 
nigs, while on the same day in Copenhagen I 
would have received five marks, sixty-five pfen- 
nigs for my American dollar. Had I had Amer- 
ican gold to change into German money, I could 
have "shopped" for the best rate, which at that 
time was about five marks and eighty-seven pfen- 
nigs. In other words, there was a difference of 
about twelve per cent, between the gold exchange 
and the exchange received for the check. 

Nothing is too big for German organization 
to attempt and nothing is so small as to be over- 
looked. The paternalism of the Government is 
nowhere so marked as in the Reiclishank, and this 
spirit is well illustrated in a little incident, for 
the accuracy of which I can vouch : 

A wealthy manufacturer of Germany took a 
brief vacation at Marienbad in Austria. He felt 
the need of a little stimulation, and dropped into 

153 



INSIDE THE GERMAN EMPIRE 

a private club one evening to play baccarat. 
When he was through his session, he was about 
200,000 marks the loser, and he gave a draft on 
his bank in Berlin to cover that amount. The 
draft was put through the Marienbad bank, and, 
as is now done with all foreign collections, was 
forwarded to the ReicJishank for adjustment. 
Instead of an acceptance being made, the drawer 
of the check and the bank through which it had 
been put received telegrams requesting that im- 
mediate explanation be given to the Reichshanh 
as to how the check happened to be di-awn, and 
to what purposes the funds were to be put. 

Rather embarrassed, the loser naively ex- 
plained that he was making a private investment. 
After further correspondence, the Reiclisbank 
finally approved the draft, and he was permitted 
to draw his own money. As this was so illustra- 
tive of the German efficiency I made it a point 
to ask why the draft had been questioned, and 
was told that the inspection department of the 
Reichshanh wished to be satisfied, first, that the 
large amount of money was not to be used for 
espionage purposes, and secondly, that the money 
thus taken out of Germany, would not be wasted. 

154 



BEHIND THE BATTLE LINE 

It may be questioned if the Reichsbank's second 
purpose was fulfilled, but obviously such a watch 
over financial matters proves a deterrent to fool- 
ish expenditures. 

But the most extreme example of German 
paternalism is her recent step in establishing uni- 
versal compulsory labor for all able-bodied males 
behind the front. All men of military age who 
are unfit to bear arms, also all men over military 
age but under sixty, will be put in charge of a 
special new department of the War Office. They 
will be so apportioned and distributed in those 
industries the products of which are most needed 
for the very existence of the nation that hundreds 
of thousands of able-bodied workmen heretofore 
held back in the munitions factories will be re- 
leased for military service. 

This so-called "civil service" based on a "man- 
power" law, has not yet been extended to the 
women, but the project is being seriously dis- 
cussed, and a vigorous campaign is being waged 
to induce the women, whom public opinion will 
not yet permit to be sent to the front, to sub- 
stitute wherever possible for able-bodied men 
who can shoulder arms. 

155 



INSIDE THE GERMAN EMPIRE 

The Germans are proud of this new service 
that will compel every man to "do his bit," and 
point to it as proof of their genuine democracy. 
The fact that this measure of compulsion is ap- 
plied indiscriminately to all classes, to rich and 
poor, to landed aristocracy and meatless pro- 
letariat alike, is to the German mind convincing 
evidence of its inherent democracy. To the Ger- 
mans democracy means rather equality of sac- 
rifice than self-government. 

The new organization for "war work is under 
the direction of General von Groner, whose 
work in the Prussian ministry of Railways won 
him a high reputation. His personal descrip- 
tion of the new program runs thus : — 

"The new War Office represents Germany as 
a colossal firm which includes all production of 
every kind, and is indifferent to the kind of coat, 
civil or military, which its employees wear. The 
new measures are intended to mobilize all effec- 
tive labor, whereas up to the present we have 
only mobilized the Army and industry. The 
whole war is becoming more and more a question 
of labor, and in order to give the Army a firm 
basis for its operations the domestic army must 

156 



BEHIND THE BATTLE LINE 

also be mobilized. All the labor, women's as 
well as men's, must be extracted from the pop- 
ulation, so far as possible voluntarily. But if 
voluntary enlistment does not suffice we shall not 
be able to avoid the use of compulsion." 

The whole organization is in the hands of the 
new office for war (Kriegsamt). Following the 
English precedent large Berlin hotels are being 
taken over for offices of various departments. 
The Hotel Cumberland has already been adapted 
for its new functions. 

General von Groner has two chiefs of staff, 
one a military chief, who will control such mat- 
ters as concern the freeing of men for actual serv- 
ice with the colors and also urgent and imme- 
diate requirements of strictly mihtary character. 
Equal in rank with him is General Groner 's new 
invention, the "technical chief of staff." The 
latter is not an officer, but a German industrial 
magnate — namely. Dr. Kurt Sorge, director of 
the Gruson works at Magdeburg. Under Dr. 
Sorge come subordinate groups dealing with dif- 
ferent departments, including mines, iron and 
steel works, chemical works, powder factories, 
agriculture, and labor. 

157 



INSIDE THE GERMAN EMPIRE 

The actual munitions department, whicH comes 
under the mihtary section, has been given a new 
chief in General Coupette. His office is known 
as "Wumba," from the first letters of its full 
official title, Waffenund-Munitions-Beschaffung- 
samt. Parallel with "Wumba" is war labor and 
labor substitute department under Colonel Mar- 
quardt, hitherto chief of the general staff of one 
of the Western armies. 

The war labor department in turn includes 
two departments — namely, labor and substitutes. 
A further subsection is the raw material depart- 
ment, with a division for import and export, 
under Lieutenant-Colonel Hausler, and another 
division for popular economic questions under 
Colonel Wilke. The subsections are already 
working, dealing with a number of individual 
features, such as industries, various branches of 
agriculture, &c. 

This central office for war will have provincial 
officers in various industrial districts, and wiU 
have representatives attached to every army staff 
in the field, and also a large number of travelers. 
There will also be representatives attached to the 
staff of every inland army corps district. There 

158 



BEHIND THE BATTLE LINE 

will be special provincial branches of the office 
for war at Diisseldorf and at Metz, in view of 
the importance of the industrial provinces of the 
Rhineland, Westphalia, and Alsace-Lorraine. 

The travelers will be entrusted with the ex- 
amination of such questions as to whether, in this 
factory or in that, productioin can be increased 
or better methods employed. They will include 
both practical experts and professional students. 
Thus students of the technical high schools will 
be employed as travelers, as sub-directors in in- 
dustrial factories, and in other ways for which 
their studies have specially qualified them. By 
arrangement with the Ministry of Education and 
the universities this practical experience will be 
counted as student work and will qualify for 
routine public examinations, degi'ees, &c. 

[In von Groner's department will be a special 
bureau to handle the feeding of the population 
engaged in governmentally-directed work. Von 
Batocki, the so-called "Food Dictator" is hence- 
forth to concentrate his attentions on general 
supply sources and reserve stock. He is to 
handle distribution only among those classes not 
affected by the military or new labor laws — the 

159 



INSIDE THE GERMAN EMPIRE 

old and the young, the sick and the non-work- 
ing mothers. Those affected by the compul- 
sory labor are to have special allowances made 
to them in their food rations,] 

Everywhere one turns one sees women doing 
the work of men. "Women to the front" is the 
industrial cry in Germany to-day, and the women 
are responding with the same great alacrity that 
the men are showing in their military duties. 

There are women conductors, women "cab- 
bies," women teamsters, women chauffeurs, 
women ditch-diggers, women mail-carriers, 
women messengers, women bakers, women plum- 
bers, women butchers, women telegraph linemen, 
women "motormen," women plowers, women 
munition-workers, women gardeners, women 
electricians — women everything. In fact it is 
the boast of Germany that there is now not one 
field of effort formerly consecrated to man that 
has not been entered by woman. How this 
scheme of labor will be readjusted when the sol- 
diers are released again to their commercial labors 
is a serious problem. 

Germany is continuing all her social under- 
takings, her insurance against accident, unem- 

160 



BEHIND THE BATTLE LINE 

ployment, and sickness ; her medical attention for 
those insured, — 26,000,000 of them, — ^her old-age 
pensions, and the remarkably developed chain of 
labor-emplo3^ment bureaus whereby a daily bul- 
letin service brings the man and the job together 
even when they are at the opposite ends of the 
empire. The state social funds, based on indi- 
vidual taxation, are bigger than ever. 



161 



CHAPTER XIII 

Germany's pantry: feeding seventy 
millions 

Germany not starving — Organized to secure sufficient and equitable 
distribution — Prepared even if war last a decade — Present 
rations based on worst crop in twenty years — Easier to buy 
luxuries than necessaries — What is scarce — Living on the card 
system — The Central Purchasing Bureaus — Women and pris- 
oners at work on the farms — The supply of meat — Present 
prices — Food in the hotels and restaurants — The crop of 1916 
— Possibility of starvation past — The soup kitchens. 

Germany is not starving, and she does not 
intend to starve. She is further away from that 
danger-point to-day than she has been at any 
time since the British blockade tightened about 
her. Her food supphes are not varied and they 
are not abundant, but she has enough to provide 
for actual needs and still leave a margin of re- 
serve. 

Nor is the empire suffering from a serious lack 

of the necessaries of life apart from food, such 

as clothing, housing materials, paper, chemicals, 

coal, wood, and the other essentials of every-day 

162 



GERMANY'S PANTRY 

existence. Many things that make for comfort 
are not to be had ; but while their presence might 
tend to make Hfe pleasanter, their absence does 
not threaten its continuance. 

Through the marvelous organization that has 
been perfected in all of Germany, her supplies 
have been reservoired and regulated in such man- 
ner as to insure sufficient, equitable, and level- 
priced distribution, and through the remarkable 
success of her scientists, substitutes have been 
found for many of the articles cut off by Britain 
from her markets. But for man power, with 
all her guns and other engines, she has yet to find 
a substitute. 

Every one in Germany, from the highest to 
the lowest, lives by a system instituted by the 
Government and carried out with a fidelity that 
is characteristic of the law-abiding inhabitants. 
Every one lives by cards that regulate the supply 
of foods and clothing — every one but the soldiers 
in the fields and the invalids in the hospitals. 
They are given the best to be had, with no other 
limitation than that imposed by the supply. 

The very system that is enabling Germany to 
live was the cause of the once widely believed re- 

16a 



INSIDE THE GERMAN EMPIRE 

port that the empu'e was starving. It was not 
because she was starving that the new methods 
were introduced; it was because she was deter- 
mined not to be starved that they were instituted. 

Germany's preparation in the way of conserv- 
ing her supphes is not a preparation for to-day, 
to-morrow, or next week; it is a successful prep- 
aration for conditions that may extend over five, 
ten, or even twenty years, in fact, for an indefi- 
nite period. 

The secret is not hard to find. She has taught 
herself not onlj^ to be self-supporting, but to live 
within the means she produces. She has found 
that the nation can live on home-produced sup- 
plies, plus those she receives from her allies and 
so she has gone about seeing that it does so. 

The rations to-day allotted in Germany are 
based upon the crop and produce of 1915, the 
worst harvest the empire had had in twenty 
years, and the allotment is based upon a total less 
than the actual total of that lean year. So it 
will be seen that even the worst harvest, if re- 
peated, would still leave a small margin for re- 
serve. 

Germany is reenacting the story of Joseph and 
164 



GERMANY'S PANTRY 

the Pharaoh of Egypt. She is storing up her 
suppHes and doling out enough to allow for 
reasonable living. The state, in seizing the nec- 
essaries, make certain that the armies will be sup- 
plied and that no monopoly will be permitted 
the wealthy. Rich and poor fare alike. All get 
the same quantity and get it at the same time 
and at the same price. This price restrictioii ap- 
plies to the bigger staples, such as bread, fish, 
certain sorts of meat, and clothing. With money 
it is possible to buy the finer grades of flour, 
poultry, cattle and hog meats, and attire, for 
there are no restraints put about luxuries. The 
regulations apply only to the necessities: For 
example, one can buy silk socks in Berlin to-day 
in such quantities and prices as one wishes, but 
one must have a police permit, with a careful in- 
quiry preceding its issuance, to buj'' woolen socks. 
The same is true of the cheaper grades of cloth- 
ing, the prices of which have not been much in- 
creased. 

The head of the department of war food sup- 
ply (literally translated "War Nourishment"), 
who is commonly called the food dictator, Ba- 
tocki, declares that the average increase in the 

165 



INSIDE THE GERMAN EMPIRE 

cost of living between the beginning of the war 
and the autumn of 1916 ranged between sixty 
and seventy-five per cent., and from the super- 
ficial investigation I made this estimate seems 
reasonably accurate. The prices are heavily in- 
creased on some things, while on others the in- 
crement is slight. 

The greatest scarcity is in the supplies of but- 
ter, cheese, sugar, cocoa and chocolate, fats, oils, 
pork, coffee, tea, fruits such as oranges, lemons 
and bananas, and eggs. There are others, but 
these are things the average German is accus- 
tomed to in plenty, and the lack of that plenty 
has caused him inconvenience, although not to 
the extent of threatening his health. 

Vegetables are to be had in plenty, and so are 
fruits of the sort that Germany raises or that she 
can draw from her Southern allies, such as ap- 
ples, melons, pears, grapes, and the like. 

Every great staple of life is to be obtained 
only by a card. One must have cards for bread, 
butter, meat, fruits, potatoes, fats, sugar, and 
recently the system has been extended to include 
milk, cream, and eggs. 

One may have meat only five times a week, 
166 



GERMANY'S PANTRY 

butter or fats only twice a week, and in the be- 
ginning of October the empire went on a one- 
egg-a-person-per-week basis. This was for the 
purpose of building up a reserve stock of eggs, 
which up to that time had been purchasable with- 
out restriction. Bread, vegetables, and fish were 
to be had every day. 

The methods of obtaining food for those living 
in hotels and those keeping house differ. In the 
official report recently issued by the British Gov- 
ernment it was said that foreigners in Germany, 
pai^ticularly newspaper correspondents, were 
treated exceptionally in that no restrictions were 
placed upon their food. I can bear personal tes- 
timony to the falsity of this information. 

Upon my arrival at the Hotel Adlon in Berlin 
I was provided with meat- and bread-cards. The 
bread-cards had little tabs on them, each calling 
for twenty-five grams of Kriegshrot (war bread 
made of a mixture of wheat flour, corn flour, and 
potato meal, looking and tasting like our or- 
dinary rye bread). Each tab was good for a 
slice of bread. A roll required two tabs, or fifty 
grams. The meat-cards entitled one to a slice 
and a half, or seventy-five grams daily. The 

167 



INSIDE THE GERMAN EMPIRE 

meatless days are Tuesdays and Fridays. In 
compensation the days upon which one can ob- 
tain butter are also Tuesdays and Fridays. Fats 
for frying can be had on Mondays and Thurs- 
days. 

In the hotels and restaurants sugar and cream 
are not served. In place of sugar, little particles 
of saccharin are given, and in place of cream a 
thin skimmed milk. The cream and sugar are 
kept for hospital use. While it is possible to 
regulate the service of meats and butters in a 
restaurant, it is not so easy to do so in house- 
holds, and so the system for the householders is 
changed. 

Every family is given a card calling for the 
quantity to which its size entitles it, and then 
these cards are used on stated days at the various 
markets. Every family has a regular day on 
which it buys its meat supplies for the week. 
This is to prevent the butcher being loaded down 
with an unnecessarily great supply. He stocks 
just the amounts he knows his various customers 
will require and for which they present their 
cards, which he in turn presents to the central 

168 



GERMANY'S PANTRY 

governmental supply station on renewing his 
stock. 

The bakers, too, sell by weekly arrangements. 
Each consumer is entitled to 1900 grams of baked 
bread or 1700 grams of bread and 250 grams of 
meal or flour. At the beginning of the regula- 
tions the loaves used to be baked in 2000-gram 
loaves (about four pounds), but it was found 
the wastage in this was hea\'y, so now they are 
made in 1000-gram loaves. 

Every consumer is entitled to 60 grams of but- 
ter and 30 grams of oleomargarine, or vegetable 
fat. Every person has the right to draw nine 
pounds of potatoes a week. There is no restric- 
tion as to how these supplies shall be used in 
private families. If a household wanted to, it 
could use all its card rations in one day. Then 
for the rest of the week it would have to live on 
the things the purchase of which is still unre- 
stricted. 

Virtually all the food supplies of Germany are 
commandeered by the Government. Through 
the Centralgetreide und Ernahrungshuros the 
farmers and stock-raisers of each district must 

169 



INSIDE THE GERMAN EMPIRE 

turn over at a fixed price all their produce. The 
supplies are stored and reshipped to those points 
where they are needed. At the outset of Ba- 
tocki's regime there were many instances re- 
ported of efforts made on the part of food-raisers 
to hold out for higher prices by concealing their 
stocks, but heavy fines and imprisonment soon 
broke up this plan and now the system works 
smoothly. Amony the offenders were many of 
the members of the rich agrarian classes, who 
were not above turning a penny at the expense 
of the needs of their fellow-countrymen. Not 
only do these central bureaus take all the farm- 
ers raise beyond what is actually needed for im- 
mediate home consumption, but they take it at 
a price that is fixed by the Government, which 
allows a fair margin of profit, and they insist that 
the farmers' output shall be never less than a 
fixed minimum. In fact, all sorts of newly de- 
veloped methods are applied to agriculture in 
order that the output maj^ be increased. 

The question of farm labor has been partly 
solved by the employment of women and of a 
million and a half war prisoners, but these prison- 
ers are a liability as well as an asset, since their 

170 



GERMANY'S PANTRY 

presence increases heavily the number of mouths 
to feed. Eventually, after peace has been con- 
cluded, the cost of the maintenance of the pris- 
oners of war, less a certain amount allowed for 
the work they do, will be paid by the native gov- 
ernments of the prisoners. 

The restriction of meats has brought the sup- 
ply of live cattle in Germany to-day back almost 
to the figure that existed in January, 1914. It 
is considerabl}'- larger than it was a year ago. 
The supply of hogs is to-day almost thirty per 
cent, greater than it was six months ago, but it 
is still twenty per cent, less than it was at this 
time in 1915, and that in turn was almost twenty 
per cent, smaller than at the beginning of the 
war. The diminution of about 40 per cent, in 
the supply of swine was due to the enormous 
quantities slaughtered in the first year for the 
maintenance of the army, which has always had 
a great liking for sausage. At the beginning 
of the war Germany claimed one-third more cat- 
tle than France possessed and twice as many as 
England possessed, and four times as many hogs 
as France and eight times as many as England. 

In discussing the prices of food suppHes in 
171 



INSIDE THE GERMAN EMPIRE 

Germany, the economists point out that all that 
is paid goes into the pockets of home-raisers, 
whereas, they say, England and France must 
spend their money with outsiders. 

In addition to fixing the price at which the 
Government commandeers the food supplies, the 
food dictatorship also fixes the price at which it 
shall be sold. These prices are subject to fluc- 
tuations within a narrow range, according to the 
effect of temporary supplies and demands. The 
following table gives an accurate price-list of 
food staples in Berlin, in the closing months of 
1916, the prices in the various qualities being 
averaged : ^ 

Milk, per quart $ .08 

Rich milk, per quart 20 

Cocoa, per pound 2.00 

Tea, per pound 2.00 

Coffee, per pound 1.00 

Rice, per pound 12^^ 

Beet sugar, per pound 08 

Cornmeal, per pound 06 

Salt, per pound 05 

Eggs, each 10^ 

1 The German pound is one tenth larger than the American 
pound. The parity in American money has been given on the 
basis of four marks to a dollar. 

17^ 



GERMANY'S PANTRY 

Jams, per pound 4i2 

Butter, per pound . 39 

Noodles, per pound 35 

Bread, per pound loaf 09 

Veal, per pound 85 

Rump steak, per pound ...... .72 

Ham, per pound 1.75 

Bacon, per pound 1.75 

Potatoes, per pound 01^ 

White cabbage, per pound . . . .05 

Red cabbage, per pound 06 

Cauliflower, per head 25 

Kohlrabi, per pound .03 

Turnips, per pound 05 

Beans, per pound 15 

Peas, per pound 60 

Herring, each 25 

Apples, per pound 15 

Pears, per pound 30 

Flour, per pound .11 

Onions, per pound 08 

Mutton, per pound 65 

Chicken, per pound 75 

Goose, per pound 90 

How the plans work out can best be illustrated 
by taking the case of the Adlon. The regular 
"luncheon breakfast" there now costs 5/4 marks. 



173 



INSIDE THE GERMAN EMPIRE 

It used to cost 3/4 marks, and was then more 
bountiful than it is now. For 5/4 marks to- 
day one is given, on the meat day, a vegetable 
soup, a fish, one sort of meat, two sorts of 
vegetables, and a salad. Sweets that used to 
be included are now charged for, and, as was al- 
ways the case in Europe, coffee is an extra 
charge. The dinner that formerly cost 5 marks 
now costs 7 marks. On a meat daj^ it consists 
of a soup, a fish, one sort of meat, two vegetables, 
and a sweet. On a meatless day eggs or an ex- 
tra service of fish are given. 

In all the restaurants the old a la carte menus 
have disappeared. One lives on the table d'hote 
plan entirely. It is a case of getting what they 
have to give you, not what you want to get. 

In the popular-price restaurants the tariffs are 
less than one would expect. At the same time 
the portions are smaller. At the famous Cafe 
Bauer you pay forty cents for pot roasts, or for 
Wiener Schnitzel, For a thin "steak minute" 
you pay seventy-five cents. The various sand- 
wiches run about fifteen cents apiece. 

The official statement of existing conditions 
made for me by the food bureau reads: 

174 



GERMANY'S PANTRY 

It can be demonstrated that there has been a com- 
plete failure of the starvation and exhaustion war 
waged against us. The crop of 1915 was unfavorable 
beyond record. A smaller yield of the German fields 
than that of last year is not to be expected even under 
the most unfavorable conditions. 

Despite the heavily reduced harvest, several million 
tons below our usual average, we have managed; and 
out of it, in addition to supporting our own demands, 
we have sent considerable quantities to the occupied 
districts in the east, to take the place of the crops de- 
stroyed by the Russians when they were swept back. 
This territory will in the present autumn maintain its 
wealth and, after covering its own needs, will perhaps 
even be able to add to our reserve. 

The crop of 1916, which is now being garnered, 
forms a good average harvest; it will give us several 
million tons more than the last one. We have been re- 
lieved of all worry as to our vegetable food, and we will 
be able to use a considerable portion for animal nour- 
ishment, and thus be able to establish a certain equi- 
librium in our cattle stock. 

We are cropping a brilliant fodder harvest. In 
barley alone we have over a million tons more than we 
had last spring. Further, through the success of ex- 
periments we have just been completing, we will be in 
possession of several hundred thousand tons of valu- 
able nutritious food obtained from substances which 
were formerly regarded as worthless. 

175 



INSIDE THE GERMAN EMPIRE 

If the starvation war against the Germans is to be 
successful, it would have demonstrated itself within the 
last year, when our need was poignant and our wants 
such as might have become dangerous to health and 
vital power had they not been supplied. If we were 
able to pass the crisis in the most unfavorable harvest 
we have had for many years, it is extremely unlikely 
that we shall be again in a critical position. . . . 

In a number of towns mass-feeding places have been 
established where for a little money nourishing meals 
have been obtained. As a general rule it has been noted 
that the number of participants at these joint dinners 
have been very small. In the big towns, such as Ber- 
lin, Cologne, Diisseldorf, and Essen, only from two to 
three thousand persons participated each week. It is 
true that prejudice and distrust may have played a 
part in keeping the figures down, but no amount of 
prejudice could have kept the people away if a real 
need had existed. 

The meals in these central kitchens cost about 
fifteen cents. The portions are not particularly 
large, and there is marked celerity in service. 
Tomatoes and macaroni, groats and stewed 
fruits, were the principal ingredients in each 
day's bill of fare, with meat on meat days and 
fish on the meatless days. 

Just as Britain had to prepare militarily after 
176 



GERMANY'S PANTRY 

the war began, so Germany has had to prepare 
economically. She did not expect so long a war, 
and her planning was not predicated upon so 
sharp a decline in her supplies. But she has 
passed the danger-point and she is certain she 
cannot starve. 



177 



CHAPTER XIV 

Germany's backbone: her army 

German belief in the invincibility of her armies — Grounds for 
German confidence — Military secrecy — Over half a million new 
soldiers every year — Her gross military strength — The German 
losses, temporary and permanent — The number of prisoners in 
Germany — Territory occupied — General Freytag-Loringhoven 
on the Somme campaign — French soldiers better than the 
English, he says — The impasse in the west — German desire for 
a "Bewegungs-kneg." 

There are grumblings in Germany to-day 
over the matter of food, there are misgivings as 
to the economic outlook, there are questionings 
over the political conditions; but throughout the 
empire there is a complete union in one sentiment 
— that of pride, confidence, and security in her 
soldiers and in her military situation. 

The Germans believe their armies to be invin- 
cible, and in that belief lies the national convic- 
tion that they will never be conquered. Their 
dream of an overwhelming triumph has been dis- 
sipated by the bitter knowledge that the military 
factor is not the only one employed in the cal- 
culus of victory ; there are economic and spiritual 

178 



GERMANY'S BACKBONE: HER ARMY 

battles to be won as well as those in the fields and 
on the water. Solely from the military point of 
view the Teutons say they may claim victory 
now, and in proof of this they point to the record 
of their arms. Their work, they add, is a matter 
of actual accomplishment, while the Allies base 
their claims on what they hope to do. 

But since Germany has discovered that the 
fight is not one of limited rounds, but to a finish, 
her people realize that no "decision on points" 
is to be awarded, so they face the situation with- 
out delusions. They realize that their first great 
project — to seize Paris and crush France — has 
failed, and with the failure they have passed 
from offensive warfare to a fight for existence. 
Germany is forgetting the bitterness of this dis- 
appointment the more readily in the faith she has 
that her armies, unable to achieve the task of 
wiping out the Allies, are nevertheless able to 
prevent the Allies from destroying her. 

Why she is so supremely confident — what 
grounds she has for her assurance, what signifi- 
cance she attaches to the rise and fall of the tides 
of war, what her preparations for its continuance 
are, what her actual condition is, how she is pay- 

179 



INSIDE THE GERMAN EMPIRE 

ing the toll — these are questions to which I sought 
answers in Germany. 

The military situation as such is prettj^ well 
understood throughout the world through the of- 
ficial reports of the belligerents, which are gen- 
erally fair and accurate. The technicalities of 
strategy and tactics are expounded daily — and 
differingly — by the experts, but the underlying 
meanings of the moves and counter-moves, the 
effect upon the countries engaged, the interpre- 
tation in terms of easy comprehension, do not ap- 
pear in the communiques. As I visualized the 
situation in Germany, listening to the claims 
made by German leaders, notably Lieutenant- 
General Baron von Freytag-Loringhoven, for- 
merly chief of staff to Falkenhayn, now chief of 
the supplemental great general staff, a renowned 
strategist and military writer, and by other gen- 
erals actually in the field, the confidence in the 
fatherland is firm — 

Because of the great amount of territory Ger- 
many and her allies hold in Belgium, France, 
Russia, Serbia, Montenegro, and Roumania; 

Because aU the battles are being fought on 
enemy soil; 

180 



GERMANY'S BACKBONE: HER ARMY 

Because of the great number of prisoners she 
holds ; 

Because of the better organization of her forces 
and the bravery of her soldiers and the ability of 
her leaders; 

Because of the lesser number of casualties she 
sustains compared with her enemies; 

Because of her greater success in the re-service 
of the wounded ; 

Because her reserves are sufficient to enable 
a war of attrition to be fought for years to come ; 

Because of the spirit of nationalism that ani- 
mates her people, soldiers and civilians alike. 

There are other grounds assigned, but, like the 
majority of statements made for neutral con- 
sumption, they lapse into generalities and vague 
predictions. What is hardest to learn is not 
ijcliat the German leaders think, but why they 
think as they do. 

To get into Germany in these days is hard 
enough, but to get through the wall of secrecy that 
is built around every phase of military life ( except- 
ing visits to the front, which are now made by cor- 
respondents freely and with few restrictions upon 
what they may see) is much harder. It took four 

181 



INSIDE THE GERMAN EMPIRE 

weeks to get certain questions answered, and to 
others I could get no answers. Ordinary precau- 
tion, coupled with the spy-fear that is still strong 
in the empire, makes for suspicion every time one 
seeks replies to even harmless queries. 

Through the cooperation of Colonel von 
Haften, formerly personal aide to Hindenburg, 
now official representative of the great general 
staff at the Foreign Office, I obtained from the 
Kriegsministerium (war ministry) certain data, 
among the most important being that Germany 
counts on calling to the colors every year a mini- 
mum of 550,000 men reaching the military age 
— nineteen years. 

The assertion is made that this is sufficient to 
repair her wastage, but this claim is manifestly 
unsound. Her permanent losses tlu'ough death, 
serious wounds, and capture are estimated to 
have reached a minimum of more than a million 
men. The difference between these two figures 
represents the annual decline in German man 
power, although the officials say that by counting 
the lists of the Zuriickg est elite (those not com- 
pelled to serve when their service age arrives), 
the figure of depreciation is reduced. 

182 



GERMANY'S BACKBONE: HER ARMY 

The claim of more than 500,000 recruits yearly 
would give Germany, roughly, a total available 
man power, not counting her battle losses, of 
twenty-six times that figure, since the service age 
runs from nineteen through forty-five. That 
would be more than 13,000,000, but allowing for 
increasing mortality with increasing age, the net 
figure for Germany's gross military strength be- 
comes about 11,000,000. As her population is 
70,000,000, that would be a ratio of a little less 
than sixteen arm-bearers out of every 100 of pop- 
ulation, which, statisticians say, is too high by at 
least twenty per cent., although Germany has 
always claimed this footing. 

From figures derived from various sources and 
carefully checked off, it was found that the Ger- 
mans have reduced their ratio of casualties in 
every hundred men to this table : 

Unhurt 40 

Killed outright 11 

Taken prisoner 6 

Died from wounds 2 

Wounded and unserviceable 4> 

Wounded, but serving again 37 

Total 100 

183 



INSIDE THE GERMAN EMPIRE 

It will be observed that forty-three per cent, 
of all men are wounded, and that of these, thirty- 
seven per cent, are able to fight again, or eighty- 
six per cent, of the total wounded. The number 
of wounded who die is claimed to be less than five 
per cent, of that total, and the number who are 
no longer fitted for service is about nine per 
cent. 

Germany has put into the field of action, in 
round numbers, 4,500,000 men. If the formula 
is carried out, it will be found, ignoring recruits 
called to the colors, that of the total force she 
claims : 

Total unhurt 1,800,000 

Total casualties 2,700,000 

The casualties are thus divided, 

Killed outright 495,000 

Taken prisoner 270,000 

Died from wounds 90,000 

Wounded and unserviceable . 180,000 

Wounded, serving again .... 1,665,000 

Total casualties 2,700,000 

Of this number three classes — killed outright, 
prisoners, and dead from wounds, form the net 
loss, which is 1,035,000. 

184j 




\ 

%: 




/'' ''^<^^f</^ /^'^^ff /'r/ 



GENEUAL VON IIIXDENBURG 



GERMANY'S BACKBONE: HER ARMY 

Press despatches from London in November, 
1916, gave the Enghsh compilation of the Ger- 
man losses in killed, prisoners, and womided as 
3,755,693 to November 1, of which 200,000 were 
in October. Subtracting this and a like amount 
for September, the British estimate exceeds the 
German by over fifteen per cent. The British 
declare that 910,234, or 24.2 per cent, of the total 
casualties, were killed. This figure is obviously 
too high. On the other hand the researches 
of the War Study Society of Copenhagen tend 
to show that the German figures are too low. 

As to the number of men now under arms and 
her available reserves the German authorities 
would say nothing. They were, however, will- 
ing to give official figures as to the number of 
prisoners Germany had on September 15. The 
list follows: 

French officers 6,158 

French soldiers 355,545 

Russian officers 8,945 

Russian soldiers 1,183,989 

Belgian officers 658 

Belgian soldiers 41,738 

British officers 1,000 

187 



INSIDE THE GERMAN EMPIRE 

British soldiers 30,787 

Serbian officers none 

Serbian soldiers 25,879 

Total 1,654,669 

To this list Germany claims to have added 
10,000 French, British, and Russians, and about 
50,000 Roumanians, so her prisoners sum up 
about 1,700,000. To this figure must be added 
81,897, civihans who are interned in the empire, 
British, French, Russians, Serbians, and Rou- 
manians. Germany did not intern the Japanese 
within her limits. She is studiously polite to 
them. 

Another official table that the war ministry 
prepared related to the enemy lands now in pos- 
session of the central powers. It reads : 

Square miles occupied. 

In Belgium 11,180 

In France 8,100 

In Russia 112,000 

In Serbia 34,800 

In Montenegro 5,600 

Total 171,680 

188 



GERMANY'S BACKBONE: HER ARMY 

To this total must be added the big mileage 
since won in Roumania, a few square miles of 
Italy held by the Austrians, and parts of Al- 
bania and Greece which are nominally not at 
war. 

Against these figures the general staff admits 
that France holds about 400 square miles of Al- 
satian territory, and that Russia holds in Gali- 
cia and Bukowina about 8400 square miles. To 
this should be added the great African territories 
Germany has lost, with the exception of por- 
tions of German East Africa; large portions of 
Turkey held by Russia and England ; and a small 
part of Austria held by the Italians. 

To get the official view of the situation held by 
the officers of the general staff, I called on Gen- 
eral von Freytag-Loringhoven at the general 
staff building in Berlin, where the great Moltke 
long presided. He received me in a room the 
distinguishing features of which were maps, not 
only showing the disposition of the German 
forces, but immense wall-sized ones on which were 
diagramed the present locations of the Allies, 
showing their mmiber, their commanders (des- 
ignated by name and location of headquarters), 

189 



INSIDE THE GERMAN EMPIRE 

with their relative ranks indicated by little parti- 
colored flags. I had just returned from the 
Somme, and as I saw how each of the French and 
British lines was clearly marked, I expressed my 
surprise. 

The general smiled. 

"Yes, our intelligence department is pretty 
thorough," he said, "but it is no better on the 
Somme than our enemy's is, for in France, where 
we stand on occupied soil, ahnost every civilian 
is an aid to the Allies. 

"But despite that, despite all the French and 
English can do at the Somme," he went on, "they 
will never break through. There is no doubt 
but that the primary objective of the Somme 
offensive was to break through. They timed the 
movement well and took us at a place and time 
when we were weakest ; but the worst has passed, 
and they have failed to gain their goal. Now it 
is impossible, for we have so strengthened our 
positions with new trenches, reserves, and guns 
that the operation has lost its significance be- 
yond pounding away, which we can stand at the 
price they are paying. 

190 



GERMANY'S BACKBONE: HER ARMY 

"It is to be expected that we may lose a few 
more villages. The losses will be such as we can 
afford, since they will be of use in straightening 
our lines. But no place will be given up with- 
out making the Allies pay a high cost, as at this 
post. 

"The offensive began on June 23. From that 
time to this [the end of September] the French 
and English have gained about three per cent, of 
the French ground we hold. At that rate it 
would take about eight years to drive us out of 
France, and with the new positions we have pre- 
pared, that ratio will not hold. And in Bel- 
gium we are untouched. 

"The Germans are holding about 1700 miles of 
front alone. With our allies we are guarding 
something like 2900 miles, exclusive of sea-coasts. 
We are equal to the task, and new difficulties 
only hearten us the more for our work. Rouma- 
nia is not to be taken seriously. [This was said 
just after Mackensen had begun his successful 
Dobrudja campaign.] Soon we shall have our 
men operating in that section free for other work. 

"The great promised Salonica offensive — ■■ 
191 



INSIDE THE GERMAN EMPIRE 

«• 
where is it? I hear more talk of Sarrail being 

pushed into the sea thah of pushing us back into 

our own borders." 

I asked the general for his impressions of the 
French and British soldiers. He answered: 

"The French are better soldiers. They are 
better schooled and drilled. They have been at 
it longer and they are enormously brave and sac- 
rificing. But the British are proving their 
worth, too. They are all of them warlike and 
like to fight, but they don't know how as yet. 
You can't make a soldier in a few weeks or 
months; it takes time and patience. 

"The French artillery is exceptional. The 
French artillery officers have always been of high 
repute. They are teaching much to the English 
and Russians, and these forces are showing a cor- 
responding betterment. 

"Because of their greater experience, I should 
say the French are better officered than the Eng- 
lish. The Russian officers are a poor lot. There 
is no sympathy between them and their men. 
The men are brave enough, but are sheep-like in 
their lack of intelligence. 

"We can hold out as long as the Allies can, 
19S 



GERMANY'S BACKBONE: HER ARMY 

now that we have dug ourselves in on the west 
front. We were forced to this course by being 
so heavily outnumbered and outgunned because 
of our enormously extended fronts. Bear in 
mind that when we marched into France the 
French and English dug themselves in; but we 
unearthed them and drove them back. They 
cannot do the same with us. The situation is 
just this: 

"On the west we have not the strength at this 
time to advance, but the Allies have not the 
strength to break through. It is an impasse for 
them and will continue so. They cannot and 
shall not pass. On the other hand, a decisive 
action elsewhere may have a big effect in our 
favor on the west. We have much to hope for 
if circumstances favor us." 

His Excellency would not make clearer this 
rather cryptic utterance, which might have re- 
ferred to the Roumanian campaign or to the pos- 
sibility of a Russian peace, with the consequent 
freeing of great numbers of Germans from duty 
in the east. 

"It is too early to draw any military lessons 
from the way the war has been fought. Of 

19i 



INSIDE THE GERMAN EMPIRE 

course cavalry, as such, is not very effective on 
the west, except for escorts, but elsewhere it is 
still serviceable. Machine-guns and heavy artil- 
lery have proved the most effective factors in the 
west, but in the eastern campaigns the infantry 
and cavalry are still highly useful." 

Freytag concluded with the sentiment that 
every German general utters: "It is too bad 
that circumstances have forced this Stellungs- 
hrieg [trench war]. In the open, with oppor- 
tunity to use strategy and tactics, we could soon 
bring an end to the war." 

The sahie opinion was expressed by General 
von Kirchbach, commanding one of the armies 
of Field-Marshal Crown Prince Rupprecht of 
Bavaria at the Somme. He had lost Ginchy the 
day I saw him at the front, but he too was cer- 
tain that "the Allies will never come through." 



194* 



CHAPTER XV 

ON THE SOMME: ORDEAL BY BATTLE 

The soldiers in the front line — Courtesy among the aviators — 
"English have not won enough ground to bury their dead," 
says German general — German surprise at English acceptance 
of conscription — Drain on supplies — Pigeon posts — French vil- 
lagers behind the front — "Their damned artillery makes it 
hell" — Von Papen, Boy-Ed, and Dernburg — Zeppelins and 
what their officers think of them — The German "American- 
eaters'' — The English hope: that if they cannot break the 
German line they may break the German heart. 

The most interesting of the generals at the 
Somme was von Wenninger, commanding the 
First Division of the Guards, who held Thiepval 
for a long time in the face of continuous attacks. 
He told me that for twelve days previous to the 
loss of the village he had had no communication 
with his men in the fii'st-line trenches, which had 
lost all semblance of trenches, being merely 
crater-holes, in the bottom of which the men bur- 
rowed and hid from artillery fire, popping up to 
repel attacks. No one knows what the men 
lived on while they were cut off except for the 
field mice and rats that they caught and ate. 

195i 



INSIDE THE GERMAN EMPIRE 

With a party of correspondents and neutral 
army observers in September I stood in the gen- 
eral's field headquai'ters and watched the big 
guns drop shells all around the famous "wind- 
mill of Pozieres" on the high ridge which had 
been taken by the British and was being used by 
their artillery observers, who gamely held on, 
although the position was anything but com- 
fortable. 

While we watched the bombardment a squad- 
ron of English fliers passed overhead. I ducked 
and made for the bomb-proof. 

"Don't worry," said the general, "the fliers 
rarely bomb us. Our aviators generally leave 
their generals' headquarters alone, and they usu- 
ally do the same by us. It is a sort of under- 
stood courtesy." 

The Somme represents war raised to the nth 
power. At different times one can see and hear 
every phase of military activity — drum-fire, 
light field pieces, machine-guns, hand-grenades, 
mine-throwers, infantry attacks, mine explosions, 
liquid fire gas, observation balloons, anti-aircraft 
cannon, while aeroplane observation and flights 
are so common that they fail to stir up any ex- 

196 



/ ON THE SOMME: ORDEAL BY BATTLE 

citement even among visitors. I counted as 
many as sixty machines aloft in half an hour a 
few weeks ago. The large majority of them 
were French and English, for the German ma- 
chines are heavily outnumbered, so much so that 
their value as observers is sharply curtailed. 

Talking of the offensive, Wenninger said: 

"The English have not won enough ground 
from us to bury their dead in single gi'aves, and 
they won't. The English losses are terrific, but 
their soldiers fight well. The mortality of of- 
ficers is very heavy among the English. We 
can tell that apart from the casualty lists by the 
few officers who are taken prisoners in compari- 
son to the number of men we take." 

Then Wenninger said what every military man 
in Germany thinks : 

"The big surprise of the war is Britain's ac- 
ceptance of conscription. It's the very thing 
we thought she was opposed to. We did not be- 
lieve she would ever take it up, but she has, al- 
though it is inconsistent with her expressed prin- 
ciples." 

The general gave it as his opinion that the 
first draft of the conscripts were not nearly as 

197 



INSIDE THE GERMAN EMPIRE 

good as the men in Kitchener's army. One of 
his divisions — the Third Bavarian — he told me, 
had been opposing the Fifteenth Enghsh Di- 
vision for eleven months. Every time one di- 
vision moved it would find itself facing the same 
opponents, who had moved too. 

At the Somme the Germans have taken a leaf 
from the English book and emplaced many of 
their big naval cannon. We were permitted to 
see two of the great 42-centimeter howitzers op- 
posite Pozieres. They had just been brought 
up to the line. The 21 -centimeters were com- 
mon. 

Where before a division covered about three 
miles front, the fighting is so intensive on the 
Somme that it now holds less than one mile. 
This is true on both sides. 

In one day the Third Division, standing op- 
posite the Courcelette-Martinpuich line, shot 
away 160 heavy truck-loads of ammunition. 
This is a fair example of the tremendous drain 
on supplies. The reserve men and supplies are 
brought up at night. That is why the roads on 
both sides are generously sprayed by cannon-fire 
after sunset. 

198 



ON THE SOMME: ORDEAL BY BATTLE 

Only the exceptionally fine roads permit a bat- 
tle of the nature of that being fought on the 
Somme. In the east, the experts agreed, the 
outcome would have to depend upon infantry at- 
tacks, since the roads are so bad as to preclude 
supplies sufficient to permit any long-continued 
engagements. 

The Germans have pushed the railroad con- 
struction right up to the firing lines to facihtate 
replenishment of supplies. It is rather incon- 
gruous to see locomotives puffing away, with 
harvesters at work on one side (the Germans till 
the ground right up to the volcano's edge) and 
heavy guns shooting on the other. 

One of the proudest boasts the Germans make 
is that at the Hohenzollern redoubt their hand- 
grenade men outthrew in distance and accuracy 
the English, who should have excelled through 
their cricket practice. Some English prisoners 
admitted this claim. "We didn't know how to 
handle the things at first, and they did, but you 
ought to see us now." 

Pigeon-posts are much used at the Somme. 
The birds are taken into the front lines, and 
when communications are broken, they are re- 

199 



INSIDE THE GERMAN EMPIRE 

leased, two at a time, each carrying the same 
message, and they fly back to headquarters, 

As you pass through the villages in the line of 
fire you notice that every house has a sign on it 
indicating how many soldiers can find place in 
the cellar when bombardment begins. 

Bapaume, one of the great objectives of the 
British just now, is under almost constant fire, 
yet many French villagers still stay there. They 
no longer live in the houses ; they live entirely in 
the cellars, and the improvised chimneys stick up 
along the street in weird manner. 

In going down the roads and across fields 
under fire, the reserves go single file and several 
paces apart. So do the correspondents, and the 
precaution is not calculated to heighten one's feel- 
ing of safety, especially when fountains of earth 
are kicked up by exploding nine-inch shells only 
eighty or one hundred yards away. One finds 
himself thinking that if the gunner had deflected 
only two points, well — as Bennett of the Chi- 
cago "Tribune" and I were leaving a 21 -centi- 
meter position opposite Pozieres a shot scythed 
through a tree not ten yards from us. A new 
world's record for the 880-yard run was made 

WO 



■n 


■ 


^^^^^^^Pl^r ^^^f^ 


^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^H 




^^^^^^^^^^H 


^^^^£^H 


^^B 


^ \^^H^jQH 


1 ^ 


^^^^^^^^^^^■^ ""^IP^ ^PP 


m 


^^^^^^ / M 


m 


^^^^^^^^^^^k '''^^^nllB 


m 




r 


BHmmB 




I^^I^^^^^HH 


^HHta|^i. 


■^Cj^Hil&i''*^'''''^'^^'^^''^I^WB 


H^^^^^^^^^HHl 




^^^^■H 




*^M 




^f-|M -'9 


IKv*/ ^^' 


.v'l^B jH 


^■^''^'-/^^►i^ 


. ^^[ ^M 


^^^fy^m^ 


'Mgtm 9P 


^m^M/^W^ 


fttt^^K 




-^W 


^y^WryftfW^' ' i;^HHHH| 


■■^L.. 



Brown BruthbTi 



GENERAL VON MACKENSEN 



ON THE SOMME: ORDEAL BY BATTLE 

from then and there. Bennett is fat, so I beat 
him, but I could have beaten a real champion 
under the same conditions. 

The Enghsh are doing much mining along the 
Somme. The Germans say the Welsh miners 
are brought over for this purpose. It usually 
takes two or three weeks to dig the tunnels. 
Some are ninety feet long. This shows why the 
progress is so slow. 

While I stood in his observation-point with 
Wenninger an iron-gray quartermaster sergeant 
passed. He had been in the east against the 
Russians as well as in the west. In reply to my 
question as to his opinion of the schools of fight- 
ing, he answered: 

"I 'd rather face twenty infantry attacks from 
the Russians than bring up food to the first 
lines here. Their damned artillery makes it 
hell." 

At the Somme I met Captain von Papen, the 
former German military attache, who was sent 
home by America. After six weeks on the 
firing line he was made chief of staff to General 
Count Schweinitz, commanding the Fourth 
Guard Division and holding the Grevillers-War- 

20S 



INSIDE THE GERMAN EMPIRE 

lencourt-Ligny line. He has proved himself an 
efficient officer. 

Captain Boy-Ed, the naval attache, who was 
sent back to Germany at the same time, is now 
chief intelligence officer at the admiralty in Ber- 
lin. He is very bitter toward America, while 
von Papen is friendly. Dr. Dernburg, the other 
propagandist who was returned to the fatherland, 
is philosophical as regards his work in America, 
and is without rancor over his treatment. He is 
living in Berlin, working on housing plans for 
the poor, but he has lost the confidence of his 
Government. 

Many German officers who have lived in Lon- 
don or in other parts of England are being 
drafted into the Zeppelin service. Some are 
much distressed by their new task, but to them 
duty leaves no choice. 

Many of the soldiers excused for munition 
work in the plants at Essen and elsewhere are 
coming back to the colors, their places being taken 
by women, and the old and wounded, who can 
sei've no more, but can run machines. 

In the German mind the use of the Zeppelins 
is justified, first, because it is regarded as an 
I 204 



ON THE SOMME: ORDEAL BY BATTLE 

effective military instrument, and second, because 
the Germans actually believe they are being used 
as reprisals against the English and French. In 
an official communication in which the use of 
airships is explained it is said that "Germany 
has hitherto restricted herself, in accordance with 
international law, to fortified defended sites serv- 
ing military ends. She has also given instruc- 
tions to sj)are churches, monuments, and mu- 
seums, etc., in these localities. The evils of war 
are not to be unnecessarily increased. This pol- 
icy has been maintained by the German com- 
mand despite French and English attacks on 
open towns like Karlsruhe, Stuttgart, Miillheim, 
and Ludwigshafen. Now the German Govern- 
ment can no longer show its original considera- 
tion for the hf e and health of peaceful inhabitants 
of bombarded to^vns. England has forced her 
to take reprisals." 

Although Germany still regards the Jutland 
battle as a "moral victory," one does not hear 
much in these days of a willingness to try con- 
clusions again with the British Grand Fleet. 
Neutral experts say that the use of fog bombs 
was a great factor in enabling the Germans to 

205 



INSIDE THE GERMAN EMPIRE 

escape after Jellicoe reached the scene of the last 
battle. The bombs are ingeniously made so that 
upon striking the water they dissolve into a thick 
white-gray fog, which, added to the smudge of 
the smoke stream made by the oil-burning craft, 
makes a thick and opaque cloud-cloak. 

With the officers and soldiers, Americans are 
as little popular as they are with the civilians. 
At the last visit our military observers made to 
the front, now more than a year ago, they were 
shown no courtesies whatever. In the summer 
of 1916 the general staff passed an order that no 
American observers are to be permitted to go 
with the armies, although the privilege is ac- 
corded other neutrals. 

Mackensen and Ludendorff are regarded as 
anti- American. They do not like our country. 
They constitute two reasons why the American 
observers do not go to the front. The Germans 
justify their attitude on the ground that the Ger- 
man naval and military attaches were sent away 
from the United States. As they have no ob- 
servers in this country, we are entitled to none 
in theirs. Our attaches in Vienna fare no bet- 
ter. 

206 



ON THE SOMME: ORDEAL BY BATTLE 

While the Germans do not talk much of the 
general military ability of their Austrian allies, 
they are quick to give credit for the remarkable 
success of the Austrian artillery, which, as has 
been often said, has had a large part in the mili- 
tary successes of the central powers. 

The German general staff possesses good psy- 
chologists. Almost every day in the official re- 
ports there is to be seen a play upon the pride 
of the various German tribes, by describing the 
work of the Prussians, Bavarians, Saxons, Wiirt- 
tembergers, Badeners, Brandenburgers, Pomera- 
nians, Westphalians, and others. 

The reports that Hindenburg might shorten 
his line in the west by retiring from his 
present position grew out of a proposition in 
which many of the German generals believe. 
They are so confident of their superiority to the 
enemy in a Bewegungs-Krieg (mobile battle, in 
contradistinction to trench war), the type Napo- 
leon used, that they seriously suggested a retire- 
ment from the Somme to a position forty or sixty 
miles in the rear, where a decisive action could 
be fought in the open. Hindenburg had more 
than half a mind to consider the plan were it not 

207 



INSIDE THE GERMAN EMPIRE 

for the evil effect upon the morale of his country 
in the event of a retiring movement. 

The high light one carries away from the front 
in the west is that it is more than a battle-field 
of physical forces. It is a fight of spirit, not 
how many dead can be counted, but how many of 
the living can be disheartened. The Germans 
realize this, and that is why their leaders make 
every effort secondary to the supreme one of 
lifting up the morale of the troops and preserving 
their courage and confidence. They believe that 
the English have abandoned the original plan of 
trying to break through and are now pounding 
away in the hope that, if they cannot break the 
German line, they may be able to break the Ger- 
man heart. 



208 



CHAPTER XVI 

ludendorff: the mystery man 

Hindenburg's right hand man — Ludendorif plans and Hindenburg 
decides — His inscrutabihty — Has never been interviewed — His 
fame in Germany — Simple origin — Predestined to be a soldier 
— Reserved as a child — Rapid advance in the army — His troops 
first to enter Liege — Called to aid Hindenburg — The battles in 
the Masurian swamps — The steam roller in Poland — Second to 
Hindenburg in command of all the German armies — 'German 
confidence in him. 

"Hindenburg and Ludendorff." 

Never the one name without the other, never 
the one man without the other. The two are uni- 
fied in action. Hindenburg's dynamics are ani- 
mated by Ludendorff's thought current. Hin- 
denburg's executions are largely Ludendorff's 
conceptions. 

Ail the world knows Hindenburg. Ger- 
many's Iron Man, the hero of the Masurian 
Swamps, a colossal wooden statue of whom 
stands opposite the Reichstag in the Sieges-allee, 
the Avenue of Victory, in Berlin's Tiergarten. 
But who is Ludendorff? 

209 



INSIDE THE GERMAN EMPIRE 

Ludendorif is Germanj^'s man of mystery, the 
grim, inscrutable, silent man whose pictm-e is on 
sale in every shop, whose name is in every mouth, 
but whose real personality is hidden even from 
his own countrymen. 

Ludendorff is Hindenburg's indispensable 
right-hand man. When Hindenburg took com- 
mand on the east front in mid- August, 1914, Lu- 
dendorff was rushed from Liege, where he had 
led the first brigade to enter the conquered city, 
in a special train all the way across Luxemburg 
and the Rhineland, across Hanover and the 
Mark of Brandenburg, to Hindenbm-g's head- 
•■quarters on the eastern frontier. He became 
Hindenburg's Generalstabschef — chief of his 
general staff. 

Since then the two have been inseparable. 
When Hindenburg became chief of the great 
general staff, commanding all the armies of Ger- 
many — and as things stand to-day that comes 
near to meaning commanding all the combined 
German, Austro-Hungarian, Bulgarian, and 
Turkish armies — in September, Ludendorff 
went with him. He succeeded General von 
Freytag-Loringhoven as first quartermaster 

210 



LUDENDORFF: THE MYSTERY MAN 

general, Freytag succeeding Moltke, the former 
chief of the grand general staff, who died re- 
cently, as chief of the supplementary general 
staff. 

There are those who say that Ludendorff is 
Hindenburg's brain, and that Hindenburg's 
greatest successes have been planned by his silent, 
retiring assistant. Hindenburg, when in the 
mood, becomes very talkative and chatty, and at 
such times he often attributes his success to his 
assistant. There is a perfect harmony between 
the two; Ludendorff plans and Hindenburg de- 
cides. 

It is Ludendorff who prepares the official 
army announcements, and the innovation of 
naming the commanders on the west front in the 
daily communiques has been attributed to him; 
but beyond these bare, impersonal statements of 
what others have done, which he never signs, he 
says nothing for publication. * 

No newspaper man has ever interviewed Lu- 
dendorff. Sometimes, when Hindenburg is be- 
ing interviewed, he sits beside his chief and occa- 
sionally interjects a remark. They are the re- 
marks of a soldier, short, crisp, determined, and 

211 



INSIDE THE GERMAN EMPIRE 

to the point. "We do not think of peace," he 
once said. "No way but war leads to peace." 

He does not fear superior numbers, but has 
implicit confidence in the German ability to sur- 
mount all obstacles. "There is no blind fate," 
he says. "Numerical superiority and danger 
exist only for the weak. A fii-m will commands 
fate." 

Yet, despite his reticence, this man, even in 
his own country almost unknown when the war 
began, whose name is just becoming familiar to 
American ears, is the recipient of extraordinary 
honors in Germany to-day. 

In the grand hall of Konigsberg, the capital 
of East Prussia, stands a full length marble 
statue of Ludendorff, known with Hindenburg 
as the savior of that Province. He is an honor- 
ary citizen of two towns in East Prussia. The 
universities of Breslau and Konigsberg have 
conferred honorary doctor's degrees upon him. 
On state occasions he wears upon his breast 
medals granted him by the kings of Saxony and 
Bavaria and the grand duke of Mecklenburg- 
Schwerin, as well as by the two kaisers of Ger- 
many and Austria-Hungary. After the great 

212 



LUDENDORFF: THE MYSTERY MAN 

winter battle of the Masurian Swamps Kaiser 
Wilhelm personally decorated him with the order 
Pom* le Merite. 

Ludendorff comes of a very simple north Ger- 
man merchant family. He was not born von 
Ludendorff; that came ^ with his later honors. 
His father was superintending a large farm in 
Posen, not many miles from Hindenburg's 
birthplace, when Erich, his second son, was born. 
Later he moved to Pomerania. On his mother's 
side he traces his descent to Frederick the Great's 
royal apothecary. One of Ludendorff 's super- 
patriotic biographers, after patient study, un- 
earthed the "fact" that his hero's grandmother 
was a direct descendant of a "left-handed" 
daughter of Erich XIV., King of Sweden from 
1560 to 1569. But Kracke's attempt to attrib- 
ute Ludendorff's success to a strain of left- 
handed royal blood, diluted by three centuries of 
mediocre bourgeoisie, will hardly persuade any 
one who has not swallowed whole the Kaiser's 
idea of divine right. Ludendorff came of good, 
solid, not at all remarkable middle-class stock. 

He was predestined to be a soldier. His 
father, always regretting that he had left the 

213 



INSIDE THE GERMAN EMPIRE 

army after the war of 1870, nourished unfulfilled 
martial ambitions all his life, and passed them 
on to his son. 

Erich Ludendorff was no wonder-child. Even 
his deepest admirers can imearth no extraor- 
dinary evidences of precocity. Until his aunt 
came to teach him and his brothers he showed no 
liking for his studies, and was, if anything, rather 
backward. 

This aunt, Fraulein von Tempelhoff, says of 
him: 

"His most striking characteristic was his re- 
serve with other children. While the two broth- 
ers nearest his age were glad to play with the 
peasant and village children, he held himself 
aloof from them. Obviously," adds the loyal 
aunt, "this was not due to pride, — there was no 
hint of pride in him, — but rather to an inborn 
fineness, which made him aware of every contact 
with rough manners and uncleanliness as some- 
thing uncomfortable, contrary to his nature. 

"He always kept himself faultlessly clean, al- 
though he took part like a true boy in the games 
of his brothers, as well as in their rat and mouse 
hunts in the stables and fields." 

214. 




GENERAL VON LUDENDORFF 



LUDENDORFF: THE MYSTERY MAN 

Later, she says, he became so interested in his 
studies that he insisted on being the first of the 
children to be waked in the morning, and flew 
into a rage if he found one of his sisters ahead of 
him in the school-room. 

When he entered the military cadet school at 
the age of twelve he passed the examination and 
entered a class two years ahead of that of most 
boys of his age. In 1879 he shifted to the acad- 
emy at Gross-Lichterfelde, a suburb of Berlin, 
and three years later, just six days past his sev- 
enteenth birthday, he entered the army as an 
Offizier-A spirant. 

His advance was rapid. In 1887 he was called 
to the military Turnanstalt in Berlin; shortly 
after he was assigned to the marine infantry. In 
1890 he entered the military academy at Berlin, 
and spent three years there, making Russian his 
major study. In 1894 he went to Russia for a 
year of travel and study, in the course of which 
he studied some of the ground over which he was 
later to send the German armies. 

In 1895 he became a captain in the great gen- 
eral staff, and for the first time wore the broad 
red stripes which are the ambition of every Ger- 

217 



INSIDE THE GERMAN EMPIRE 

man officer. A year later he was assigned to 
the general command of the Fourth Army Corps 
at Magdeburg; in 1902 he became Major Luden- 
dorff ; two years later he was recalled to the great 
general staff; and the year following became an 
instructor in the military academy, teaching tac- 
tics and military history. In 1911 he was made 
a colonel. Previously, General von Moltke, at 
that time chief of the great general staff, had 
made him chief of an important division of his 
staff. 

Just before the war he was given the title of 
general major, and put in command of the 
Eighty-fifth Infantry Brigade in Strasburg. In 
the first days of August he was transferred to the 
Belgian front. 

In 1909 he had married Margarethe Pernet, a 
wealthy widow, daughter of a Berlin factory 
owner. Her four sons by her first marriage are 
all officers in the aviation corps. 

When, on the fourth of August, 1914, the 
German army crossed the Belgian frontier, Lu- 
dendorff was in its foremost ranks. On the 
night of August 5, as the Germans pressed in 
under the guns of the forts of Liege, the com- 

218 



LUDENDORFF: THE MYSTERY MAN 

mander of his brigade fell. Ludendorff took 
over the command, and led his troops through 
bitter hand-to-hand fights to the hills just east 
of Liege. 

All of the forts were still holding out. 
Through the cold night of August 6, Luden- 
dorff 's brigade huddled together on the hillside, 
uncertain where their fellow-brigades were, every 
minute half expecting an attack. 

The next morning a decision had to be made. 
Ludendorff had received no orders. He sup- 
posed other brigades must mave moved forward 
and taken the citadel of the city. He ordered 
the troops to advance, and led his troops into 
the city. The citadel was still in the hands of 
the Belgians. 

To General von Emmich, Ludendorff' s su- 
perior officer, fell the credit for taking Liege; 
but Ludendorff's troops were the first to enter 
the city. 

Ludendorff left Liege on the night of August 
7, carrying important despatches to the army 
headquarters at Aachen. There he was greeted 
as one returned from the dead. He had been 
with the first brigade under fire for three days. 

219 



INSIDE THE GERMAN EMPIRE 

After the fall of Liege, he continued with the 
army advancing through Belgium up to August 
22. Early that morning, as he was preparing to 
lead his troops against Namur, came the word 
that he had been appointed chief of the general 
staff of the east. A special train would meet 
him at the border. 

What did the solitary man think as he sat por- 
ing over his maps, while the train shot across 
Germany to Hindenburg and the Masurian 
Swamps? The Russians were pressing into 
East Prussia, and already vague rumors of whole 
villages dispossessed and of atrocities and cruel- 
ties not second to those in Belgium were creep- 
ing across Germany. 

Ludendorff as a strategist was a disciple of 
Count Schlieffen, whose motto always was, 'An- 
nihilate the enemy!" He also sympathizes with 
his chief, Hindenburg. "You can't make war 
sentimentally," says Hindenburg. "The more 
mercilessly you make war, the more merciful you 
are in reality, for so you end the war the sooner. 
The most humane method of waging war is and 
remains that which brings peace most quickly." 

With his chief, Ludendorff is officially reck- 
220 



LUDENDORFF: THE MYSTERY MAN 

oned among those opposed to the resumption of 
ruthless U-boat warfare. He once wrote a 
letter to be read at a meeting of National Lib- 
erals, asking that the German people stand 
united behind the Government without risking 
the demoralization of the army by useless contro- 
versies over the expediency of ways and means to 
success. 

But Ludendorff is a soldier. He knows not 
only how to command, but how to obey. Those 
most likely to know the real truth believe that 
this position is assumed merely as a matter of 
diplomacy, and that if his real views were known, 
they would be as rabid as those of the Amerikan- 
erfresser Mackensen. Ludendorff is a soldier 
from the soles of his army boots to the tip of his 
Pickelhauhe^ and it is unlikely that his views are 
radically different from those known to be gen- 
eral among army officers. Most army men feel 
that every effort must be bent and every avail- 
able instrument used to hurt Germany's enemies, 
and that nothing would come closer to England's 
vitals than a ruthless submarine campaign. 

But that August night, as Ludendorff's spe- 
cial slid through one after another of the little 

221 



INSIDE THE GERMAN EMPIRE 

red-roofed towns that line the German railroads, 
it was of East Prussia and Russia that Luden- 
dorff was thinking. And whatever the plans 
revolving in his head that night and whatever be 
the just division of the credit between Hinden- 
burg and his chief of staff, the Russian invasion 
of East Prussia stopped short before they had 
been in charge a week. 

On August 28 it was announced that the Rus- 
sians were fleeing across the border. The news 
grew. Five army corps and three cavalry divi- 
sions had been annihilated. More than ninety 
thousand prisoners were taken. Tannenberg, 
one of the greatest victories of the war, had 
changed the whole face of affairs in the east. 

There have been bigger battles and longer bat- 
tles, and there have been battles of more signifi- 
cance in the history of the war, but there has been 
no other battle in which the result has been so 
overwhelming and cpmplete a victory for either 
side. 

Just what happened at Tannenberg and in the 
Masurian Swamps is still a secret. There have 
been stories that a hundred thousand men were 
drowned in the swamps. There have been tales 



LUDENDORFF: THE MYSTERY MAN 

of dikes released and men swept away in a swirl 
of rushing waters. All that is known certainly 
is that a Russian army disappeared. 

Two weeks later not a Russian soldier, except 
for 140,000 prisoners of war, stood on German 
soil. The second Russian army, advancing 
along the River Niemen, had been driven back 
with a loss of 50,000 prisoners and 150 guns. 

Then followed the long campaigns for Poland, 
when the German armies, advancing almost to 
the gates of Warsaw, were forced to retire, and 
did so with the loss of hardly a man. Another 
Russian army crossed the East Prussian fron- 
tier. As the winter wore on and the snow settled 
deep on the bleak fiatlands of East Prussia, it 
seemed inevitable that it would remain imtil 
spring. 

But there was no such word as "inevitable" 
in the vocabulary of Hindenburg and Luden- 
dorff. They marched their troops through bit- 
ing snow-storms. Whole army corps were 
brought from the west front. 

The first of February saw the beginning of the 
"winter battle of the Masurian Swamps." Two 
weeks later a hundred thousand prisoners, among 

223 



INSIDE THE GERMAN EMPIRE 

them seven Russian generals, remained in Ger- 
many. The rest of the great army had fled in 
disorder into the province of Suwalki. Hinden- 
burg and Ludendorff had won their third great 
battle. East Prussia was finally cleared. 

Hindenburg's steam roller started in the 
spring. As certainly as the northward march of 
spring, the German armies moved eastward into 
Russia. Warsaw, Novogeorgiewsk, Ivangorod, 
Brest Litovsk, Grodno, Vilna, Pinsk — one after 
another the supposed impregnable Russian fort- 
resses were taken and left behind. All Poland 
fell into German hands. 

Outside of Germany the fame has been Hin- 
denburg's, at home his is the name which com- 
mands the applause of the crowds ; but those who 
know do not speak of one without the other. 
"Hindenburg and Ludendorff," they say. No 
man knows what share of the glory belongs to 
the silent, hard-working strategist who pores 
over the maps and orders by day and night and 
what to the big man of action. 

All Germany breathed freer when, on August 
29, 1916, it was announced that Hindenburg 
would succeed Falkenhayn as chief of the gi'eat 

^24 



LUDENDORFF: THE MYSTERY MAN 

general staff, and that Ludendorff would be his 
quartermaster-general. And with the German 
armies advancing on Bucharest and the Rou- 
manian king appealing to the Allies to save his 
kingdom from extinction, with the west front 
still holding after months of bloody fighting at 
the Somme, the German Hausfrau mingles the 
names of Hindenburg and Ludendorff in her 
prayers for the Kaiser. 



225 



CHAPTER XVII 

BOELCKE, KNIGHT OF THE AIR 

A hero among the Allies and among his own people — Brought 
down thirty-eight enemy machines before he was killed in col- 
lision with a German machine — Aerial chivalry — English take 
air-war as sport; Germans and French seriously — Boelcke 
never in America — The fighting detachment of the aeroplane 
corps — German team-work — Boelcke's fighting technique — 
British say German fliers hang back — How a war corre- 
spondent saved two lives — How a captured British flier viewed 
his confinement. 

It is given to few men in this war of bitterness 
and hatred to achieve popularity both among 
their own people and the enemy, and it is rarer 
among the Germans, who generally scorn the 
arts leading to it. Hindenburg, Mackensen, 
Muller of the Emden, Weddigen of the U-9 are 
four Germans who have attained this goal in 
their own country and in England and France, 
and to this list must be added the name of Cap- 
tain Boelcke of the German Flying Corps, who 
shot down thirty-eight enemy aeroplanes before 
he was killed by a collision with a German ma- 
chine behind his own lines in late October. 

226 



BOELCKE, KNIGHT OF THE AIR 

The day that Boelcke scored his twentieth vic- 
tory I talked with him for an hour. It was 
early in October, near Bapaume, and the drum- 
fire of the Somme Battle, which had been rag- 
ing since June 23, rolled and crashed about us, 
a thing alive and monstrous. The air was fairly 
dotted with skymen, while he, the chief of them 
all, sat quietly under a hangar and let me learn 
why he was held in such high esteem by friend 
and foe. For his charm and modesty com- 
manded respect and affection apart from his 
ability as a fighting flier, and in that capacity 
he was the greatest the war has produced. He 
made his record in the face of the English dom- 
inance of the air, for that, apart from Zeppelins, 
the English surely possess. And in building his 
fame he built a technique of war aviation that is 
a standard for all tacticians of the clouds. So 
the story of Boelcke is the story of a man and a 
master. When he "went," the English and 
French fliers threw flowers behind the German 
lines in his memory, and his casket, when he was 
buried, bore a great wreath from British prison- 
ers in the empire. Only among the aviators of 
the fighting armies is one certain to find that 

2n 



INSIDE THE GERMAN EMPIRE 

chivalry which once was never dissociated from 
war. Theirs is the special heritage of preserv- 
ing the knightly tradition. The extraordinary 
bitterness of the other arms of the service makes 
the contrast all the sharper. 

I came into contact with something like thirty 
or forty German fliers and several English and 
French airmen along the Somme front, and 
Boelcke was a fair representative of the lot. 
His twentieth "bag," made just before I saw 
him, illustrates the regard the English have for 
him. Captain Wilson of the Royal Flying 
Corps, attached to a station near Pozieres, was 
flying over the German lines when Boelcke rose 
to meet him. Boelcke outguessed, out manoeu- 
vered, and outshot the Englishman, who dropped 
safely to the ground after having a wing broken. 
Boelcke landed near him, and in surrender- 
ing, the Englishman asked the name of his cap- 
tor. 

"Boelcke," replied the German. 

The chagrin and humiliation of defeat and 
capture were forgotten for a moment as the 
Englishman put out his hand and, as Boelcke 
shook it, said: 

228 



BOELCKE, KNIGHT OF THE AIR 

"If I had to be shot down, I am glad it was by 
so good a man." 

Wilson was sent back to Cambrai. The next 
day Boelcke invited him to lunch with the officers 
at the flying park, where the captured flier ex- 
pressed appreciation of the exceptional treat- 
ment he had received and told of the high regard 
in which the English held the German fliers. 
That night he was sent to a German prison 
camp. 

When I talked with Boelcke, through the 
courtesy of the German general staff, which 
usually makes a rule against personal exploita- 
tion, I found him to be a good-looking young 
chap, twenty-five years old, of the thin, wiry, 
quick, and graceful type usually associated with 
airmen. His manner of thought was simple 
and direct, and his conversation modest and re- 
sponsive. 

We met at his station at an old chateau only a 
few kilometers from the heaviest fighting, in 
which he was daily engaged; but his appearance 
was neat, as is that of all the German officers, his 
face newly shaved, his uniform clean, and orna- 
mented only with the Iron Cross of the first class. 

229 



INSIDE THE GERMAN EMPIRE 

In talking of his work he made it plain that he 
held it to be a duty, not a sport, as do most of 
the Englishmen, to the bewilderment of the Ger- 
mans. 

"How many of the twenty that you shot down 
lived after the fight?" I asked him after congrat- 
ulating him on his skill and courage and telling 
him of America's interest in his heroism. 

"Only two, imfortunately," he replied with 
feeling. "All fought so well that I was sorry 
luck was against them. I think most of the 
eighteen were killed by bullets from my machine 
or died in the fall, a few meeting death when 
they smashed to the ground. One Englishman, 
Wilson, and a French officer remained alive. 
The others died for their country." 

When I asked for a comparison between the 
English and the French fliers Boelcke hesitated, 
and then said he had noticed no great difference. 
Both, he said, were courageous and skilful, with 
perhaps a distinction to be observed in the spirit 
animating them, the English never lacking the 
spirit of sport, so inexplicable to the German 
mind, while the French took it fatalistically and 
with grim earnestness. 

230 



BOELCKE, KNIGHT OF THE AIR 

Boelcke stood about five feet seven, clean- 
shaven and red-cheeked, with gray-blue eyes that 
never left the questioner. He had a thin Roman 
nose, a soft voice, and rather quick enunciation. 
He carried a cane of necessity because of a re- 
cent wound. He had been wounded several 
times, but never seriously. 

He wore the field-gray uniform of an in- 
fantry captain, with propellers on the shoulder 
straps as insignia of the service. Before the war 
he was attached to the infantry, and in common 
"with other flying officers, he clung to the old regi- 
mental uniform because of the traditions behind 
it. Only those younger men who have joined 
the fliers since the war began wear a distinctive 
flying-corps uniform. All the others wear their 
old outfit. 

Before we talked of his work he said half jest- 
ingly: 

"Since you will write for America, you might 
straighten out one point. The London papers 
credit me with having lived in America and been 
a lift-boy there, getting my flying experience in 
that way. I was never in America, and never 
happened to be a hft-boy. Just before the war 

233 



INSIDE THE GERMAN EMPIRE 

began I lived in Dessau, and did some flying 
there. I liked the work, and when I was called 
out to join the Prussian forces I went into the 
flying branch. I hope to visit America for the 
first time after the war." 

When Boelcke went into flying he was first 
an observer and later a pilot ; then he was shifted 
because of his steady eye, sure nerves, and splen- 
did courage, into the fighting detacliment, where 
he did nothing but fight off hostile aeroplanes 
scouting over the German lines or go to the relief 
of his own people attacked while on observa- 
tion duty. 

He always flew alone. There was an ob- 
server's seat in his machine, but he never used it. 
In fact, most of the German fighting fliers travel 
alone. This is to minimize the risk, "and, by 
engaging the enemy, give the observation ma- 
chines a chance to get back with information. 

''The English say that no German fighters and 
few observers cross their lines; but that they fly 
over their own troops," I said to Boelcke. 

"That isn't true as regards the observers," he 
answered earnestly. "They have done much 
good work over the enemy's forces. It used to 

234j 



BOELCKE, KNIGHT OF THE AIR 

be true in part about the fighters. That was at 
first, because there were several parts of our new 
Fokkers that we wanted to keep secret ; and sec- 
ond, because it was important that we remain on 
guard in our own territory to prevent the ene- 
my's observers gaining information. Lately 
circumstances have changed, and we fly every- 
where. Obviously, it is the best tactics to bring 
your man down behind your own lines, so he can 
be made a prisoner if alive and his machine kept 
from the chance of the enemy repairing it. 
Each of us follows the fight through now, no 
matter where it takes us." 

Boelcke's modesty kept him from saying that 
five of his quarries were shot down inside their 
own lines. His brother officers, by whom he was 
much liked, said that the English always tried to 
seek out the neighborhood in which he was sup- 
posed to be, in the hope of having a go with him. 
But he held to the strictest duty, and never went 
into action unless directed to do so. In other 
words, he held to the spirit that is a striking char- 
acteristic of the whole German army — ^team- 
work. That is what made Boelcke so well liked. 

Boelcke paid a high tribute to Lieutenant Im- 
235 



INSIDE THE GERMAN EMPIRE 

melmann, who had been killed shortly before, 
after making his twelfth score, and added that 
what he and Immelmann had done was possible 
with equal luck for all the other flying officers. 
But that there is more to Boelcke's record than 
mere luck was shown the day after he shot down 
his twentieth prize, when two of his companions, 
Rosencrantz and Falbusch, were shot down in 
trying to stop an English raiding party of eight 
aeroplanes bombing railroad stations. The 
courage with which they took on a fight with so 
superior a force was typical of the German fliers. 

When I asked Boelcke about the methods he 
used in his big-game hunting, he replied : 

"I use no special formula except to try to get 
my man before he gets me. Almost all fighting 
aeroplanes are similarly rigged, with a machine- 
gun fixed in front of the pilot. As the gun is 
stationary, to get it into position I must manoeu- 
ver my machine, and this is done best by outfly- 
ing the enemy and coming into him from the rear. 
I am violating no military secrets in saying this 
because air fighting, regardless of nationality, is 
almost always conducted on similar lines. I do 
not try to outclimb my adversary and come down 

236 



BOELCKE, KNIGHT OF THE AIR 

on him, shooting as I come, but rather to out- 
speed and outsteer him, gaining the rearward 
position, where my shots go home while he has 
nothing to shoot at. I turn as he does, for if he 
made a quicker or shorter bank than I, he would 
be able to rake me. To gain speed, we Germans 
fly light, and as speed is essential in the fighting 
end, the fighting fliers usually fly alone." 

Boelcke had had five machines smashed under 
him, but always volplaned to earth successfully 
until the fatal trip late in October, 1916. His 
favorite machine had the lines of a bird. Even 
close at hand it looked tiny, being much smaller 
than the French and British planes. 

He used a specially cooled machine-gun, fir- 
ing ordinary rifle ammunition. The gun had a 
pistol grip and trigger, and he fired it with one 
hand, steering with his feet and balancing with 
the free hand on the wheel. Boelcke and the 
other German fliers declined to use anything but 
regular rifle ammunition fed by the usual web 
belt, and shooting at a speed that is greater than 
that of the ordinary automatic pistol, sometimes 
exceeding five hundred shots a minute. 

It was a matter of ammunition that, after two 
237 



INSIDE THE GERMAN EMPIRE 

years of chivalry among the knights of the air, 
threatened to lead to great bitterness. The Ger- 
mans accused the English fliers of using incen- 
diary bullets in their machine-guns. These car- 
tridges, slightly larger than the usual rifle-shell, 
carry an explosive chamber that ignites in flight 
and inflames the substance against which it is 
shot. As aeroplane wings are oil-coated, they 
are highly combustible, and several disasters 
overtook German fliers in this way. The Ger- 
man military authorities resented the new tactics, 
and talked of making an example of captured 
Englishmen who had employed what Germany 
held to be an unfair and illegal method. Rosen- 
crantz and Falbusch were shot down in this 
way. 

It was in this connection that it became my 
good fortune to be of service in possibly saving 
the lives of two young English flying officers. 
They had just been captured and when the 
prison-yard commandant at Cambrai gave me 
permission to speak to them, he added that I 
might tell them that they were to be court-mar- 
tialed, and probably shot, on the ground that 
they had been using the so-called illegal ammu- 

238 



BOELCKE, KNIGHT OF THE AIR 

nition. I was unwilling to be the bearer of such 
unhappy news, and I did not tell them. In- 
stead, as I had not been placed under any con- 
fidence by the German officers, I informed Am- 
bassador Gerard of their danger, when I re- 
turned to Berhn, as he is charged with the Brit- 
ish interests in Germany. Through the Foreign 
Office the ambassador immediately requested 
permission to have the Englishmen represented 
by counsel at their trial. This permission was 
granted, although it had been declined in the 
case of Captain Fryatt. Before I left Ger- 
many, I was given to understand that even if the 
two men were court-martialed, it was highly im- 
probable that they would be executed. They 
were Ronald Walker, first lieutenant of the 
Royal Flying Corps, of March Rectory, Cam- 
bridgeshire, and Lieutenant C. Smith of Ceme- 
tery Road, York. When I spoke with them 
their first request was to notify their families, 
and their second for chocolate and cigarettes. 

Another Englishman whom I met in the Cam- 
brai prison gave me an Enghsh view of the Ger- 
man fliers. He was Captain H. G. Salmond 
of Bedford, England, whose heavy flying-gog- 

239 



INSIDE THE GERMAN EMPIRE 

gles had been cracked, but not splintered, by a 
bullet just before he was captured. 

"All of us think the German fliers are very 
good," he said, "and that this chap Boelcke is 
top hole, but I 'm bound to say it 's jolly hard to 
get fight out of them. We have to hang over 
their parks for hours at a time before we can 
tempt them to come up and have a go. I 've 
never seen a German machine over our lines; 
they always wait for us to bring the fight to them. 

"The officers here at the prison are decent fel- 
lows as far as they can be, but it is rotten to be 
here without a single change of togs, without a 
chance for a shave except a hack that a Tommy 
does for me by renting a razor from a German 
soldier, and without a sou of money. Naturally, 
I flew without money, and now I find that my 
prisoner's pay does n't start until I 'm shifted to 
Germany. 

"I hope they '11 hurry up. Here I can't even 
keep my windows open at night. I had some 
ripping bad luck in being bagged, though I 
must say my man was a game one. One of his 
shots glanced and broke my wind frame. I al- 
most keeled over, but righted, and managed to 

240 



BOELCKE, KNIGHT OF THE AIR 

get down without hurting myself much except 
for the wound and the bruises I got in landing." 

The captain, too, next to having word sent to 
his family of his safety, wanted most of all choc- 
olate and cigarettes. 

The Germans call their anti-aircraft guns 
"flah," deriving the nickname from Flieger-ah- 
schuss-hanonen. Every park has its own equip- 
ment of protective armament, and every series of 
observation balloons has at a central strategical 
point a "flak" batterj^ The abbreviation style 
they hfted from the British "Anzac" — Aus- 
tralian-New Zealand Army Corps. 

"I hope to see you again in happier times," 
said Boelcke in parting. "We Germans don't 
want to fight, but so long as we are forced to, you 
may be sure we will, and fight so that we shall 
never be beaten." And with a wave of his hand 
Boelcke turned to his quarters to climb into fly- 
ing-clothes. Three weeks later they dressed him 
in his shroud. 



241 



CHAPTER XVIII 

CAPTIVE BELGIUM AND NORTHERN FRANCE 

Iron heel of conqueror not crushing people — German desire to 
make country self-supporting — Belgians passive but French 
pride unbroken — The C. R. B. — Belgian unwillingness to work 
— More food in Belgium to-day than in Germany — Germans 
pay cash of national coinage — Hatred of the German in Lille 
awesome — But hatred cannot be kept at razor-edge everywhere 
— ^"The Ostend-Dover route — cheapest and quickest route to 
England"— Germans reducing Belgian illiteracy — German of- 
ficers fear effects of retention of Belgium. 

The German flag floats over 20,000 square 
miles of Belgian and French soil, a region almost 
as large as the combined areas of Connecticut, 
Massachusetts, and Vermont. All of Belgium 
except for a piece less than two hundred square 
miles in size is tributary to the Kaiser, and one 
twenty-fifth of all France is in his hands. 

With the German flag there has come the Ger- 
man rule, severe, suspicious, ruthless at times, and 
permitting no deviations from the course it pre- 
scribes for the subject peoples. But in the rule 
there is to be perceived a sense of responsibility, 

242 



CAPTIVE BELGIUM 

the recognition of which is a matter of fairness 
on the part of any neutral observer. 

The iron heel of the conqueror, as some parti- 
zans have pictured it, is not crushing the life out 
of the people by deliberate starvation, nor is it 
depriving them of all privileges. The yoke of 
the conqueror sits heavy upon the Belgians and 
the French, and they are not happy under it. 
But their businesses are permitted to continue, 
they are urged and helped to till their fields, their 
schools and churches are open, their clubs and 
gathering-places are freely used, and while the 
display of no other flag than that of Germany 
is tolerated, it is a common thing to see displayed 
in Belgium pictures of King Albert and his 
family, and in France photographs of President 
Poincare and of French generals. 

The reaction I carried away from a visit to the 
occupied territories was certainly not that which 
the Allies seek to produce, nor was it that which 
official Germany tries to create. A military oc- 
cupancy at best is a source of unhappiness to the 
people whose lands are thus seized, but it is not 
in Belgium and northern France characterized 
by the cruelty and viciousness often described. 

MS 



INSIDE THE GERMAN EMPIRE 

There is a good, substantial reason for this. Not 
that the Germans are so kindly and considerate 
as to make any other attitude abhorrent to them, 
but because, under German methods, it is hoped 
to make each region self-supporting, and that can 
be done only by encouraging the people to work 
and fostering their industries ; otherwise the bur- 
den of their support would be an added liability 
to the conquering forces, which are responsible 
for the welfare of the subject civilians. 

My visit to Belgium was not made under the 
usual conditions that the Foreign Office in Ber- 
lin throws about the tours made by neutral ob- 
servers. They are sent to the conquered country 
in the care of officers who are particularly in- 
structed as to what their charges shall and shall 
not see. My trip to Belgium was a by-product 
of my visit to the Somme battle-front. We 
stopped in Belgium on our way there and on the 
way back, and on both occasions I was given 
unusual opportunity to wander about, seeing and 
hearing the things I wanted to see and hear rather 
than things carefully picked for me by others. 

I did not find Belgium the scene of vast desola- 
tion, the dreary, stricken, hopeless land that I 

244? 



CAPTIVE BELGIUM 

had been led to believe I would find; on the con- 
trary, instead of coming away with my sympa- 
thies for the unfortunate country accentuated, I 
found their edge rather dulled. In the French 
area I found the conditions different, and there 
my sentiments were quickened into a passion of 
pity and admiration. 

It was the difference in the spirit of the two 
peoples that produced these two different im- 
pressions. 

In Belgium the people, including many young 
men, are passive in their opposition to the cir- 
cumstances which the Germans have so harshly 
forced upon them; their spirit is one of a Mi- 
cawber-hke sitting by, waiting for something to 
turn up. 

In captive France, there are no young men, 
and the opposition of the people to their subjuga- 
tion, though unspoken and unacted, is a flame, 
and I felt its strength and depth. The spirit of 
the French is one of unbroken pride; there is no 
bending of the neck, no passivity, no yielding to 
their temporary fate. And this spirit becomes 
the more remarkable in that the conditions of the 
French are much worse than those of the Bel- 

245 



INSIDE THE GERMAN EMPIRE 

gians, because of the nearness of the war and 
the attendant difficulties of supporting life. 

Through the efficient organization of the Com- 
mission for Relief in Belgium (it is unfortunate 
that the title does not include France, where it 
operates, too, and where its work just now is of 
greater importance), with the cooperation of the 
Gemian administration, much has been done for 
the stricken country; but it is evident that there 
is justice in the German assertion that Belgium 
would be better off if she would do more for 
herself. 

In the cities of Belgium, such as Brussels, Ant- 
werp, Liege, and Louvain, many of the men who 
worked at first later refused to work. They said 
they were engaged in a passive strike and that 
they would do nothing likely to advance the in- 
terests of their German rulers ; but in this refusal 
they declined also to advance their own interests, 
even to the extent of refusing to support them- 
selves. 

In the cities of "German France" the old men 
and the women — all of them — ^work. They tend 
their flocks, they till their fields, they open their 
shops, and with that thi'ift which characterizes 

246 



CAPTIVE BELGIUM 

the French they make all the money they can so 
that later they may help their country recuperate 
from the ravages of the war, and help her in the 
economic struggle that is to follow after this one 
of arms. In contradistinction to Belgium, there 
are no young men — they are all fighting for the 
motherland. 

In hoth the countries, while the administration 
has been taken over by the German military, the 
native police are still at work, and the inferior 
courts are still open and doing business. If one 
did not have advance knowledge of the fact, one 
would not know in walldng the streets of Brus- 
sels that it was a captive city, save for the pres- 
ence of the German field-gray uniform and the 
black, white and red flag. Theaters are open, 
museums are visited, and most of the restaurants 
do a flourishing business. 

There is more food in Belgium to-day than in 
Germany, as regards variety. Fruits and meats 
are to be found in abundance in the Belgian shops 
and eating-places, but of course the prices have 
gone up. It is a common practice to those Ger- 
mons visiting Belgium on business to take back 
with them meat; and the run on ham, bacon, and 

Ml 



INSIDE THE GERMAN EMPIRE 

sausage is so great that on every street one finds 
three or four shops given up to supplying the 
demand. German soldiers returning to their 
homes on furlough are permitted to take with 
them just as much meat as they can carry and 
pay for. I saw many of these fellows coming 
from the front staggering under as much as 120 
pounds of meat for their families in the "old 
country." The greater abundance of food in 
Belgium has created a feehng of resentment in 
Germany, and when I was in Brussels toward 
the end of September Governor- General von Bis- 
sing found it necessary to give out an ofiicial 
statement assuring his countrymen that Belgium 
was not the land of milk and honey, or, rather, 
fats and meats, that she had been pictured. 

I was assured that the Germans are not using 
any of the food products of the Belgians except 
those that are bought in the usual way out of the 
surplus of the various farms. The Germans, 
however, are running many of the farms them- 
selves, and their consumption of the product of 
these farms naturally decreases the amount avail- 
able for the rest of the country. 

In the various subdivisions where the Etappen 
248 



CAPTIVE BELGIUM 

Kommandants (military district commanders) 
dispensed the low, the middle, and the high jus- 
tice for the country-side, every officer in command 
seeks to make a record among the people under 
him in keeping them contented and at work. 
Apart from increasing the officers' reputation for 
administrative efficiency, this system preserves 
the peace and enables the people the more easily 
to pay the war tribute laid upon them by the 
conquerors. 

If Great Britain carries out the threat she 
made of denying the right of shipment of relief 
supplies to Belgium on the ground that the na- 
tive harvests are being used by the Germans, the 
Germans will commandeer all the Belgian sup- 
plies and put Belgium on a war footing, which 
means that the German army will be taken care 
of first, on the principle that it has the right to 
subsistence while on enemy soil, and what is left 
will be eked out with such supplies as Germany 
can send for the use of the Belgian population, 
the country being put upon a ration basis similar 
to that employed in the German Empire. 

Under present conditions both in Belgium and 
in France, everything that the officers and soldiers 

249 



INSIDE THE GERMAN EMPIRE 

get from the natives outside of such things as are 
officially commandeered are paid for not only in 
cash, but in the national coinage. And the prices 
are fixed by the shopkeepers themselves. The 
German money is not permitted to be used, in 
order to avoid constant disputes over exchange. 
The Germans must go to army banking offices, 
where they are given French or Belgian money 
in exchange for their German currency, and then 
they can spend this money only at certain stores 
and restaurants. These have large signs on 
them, saying that officers and soldiers may pat- 
ronize them. 

This restriction is to prevent the Germans 
from overrunning all the restaurants and from 
using all the supplies of the stores. On the other 
hand, certain stores in all the occupied towns are 
supplied directly by the German army with ma- 
terials needed by officers, and on such articles 
the sale is restricted exclusively to the officers. 
In other words, the stores are made into a sort of 
auxiliary army canteens. 

In the French towns all the men I saw were at 
work. In Belgium I saw many idle, although 
later the Germans instituted a system whereby 

250 




GENERAL VOX BISSINd. GOVERNOR GENERAL OF BELGIUM 



CAPTIVE BELGIUM 

this class is penalized if it does not go to 
work. The industrial plants in France were 
almost all idle, except the mines, which are being 
worked by the Germans. They cannot get sup- 
plies, but, of more importance, they have no la- 
bor. In Belgium the same difficulty exists about 
supplies and about the labor, too, though from 
another cause: in France there is none to work, 
and in Belgiimi there are those who won't work. 
At the close of 1916 the Germans began a system 
of deportation to Germany of those Belgians 
accused of refusing to work. The step brought 
protest from the Washington State Depart- 
ment, but Berlin declared the method adopted 
was the only solution of the problem it faced. 
The Alhed Governments denounced it as "sla- 
veiy." The neutral countries were much exer- 
cised by the new example of German ruthless- 
ness. 

Travel between Belgium and Germany is vir- 
tually limited to troop movements, although those 
in either country having actual business in the 
other may, after a great deal of trouble, obtain 
passports. This does not hold good regarding 
France, in which no travel of any sort is per- 

253 



INSIDE THE GERMAN EMPIRE 

mitted the natives. Around Bissing's palace in 
Brussels there is a cordon of guards by which one 
is stopped two blocks away, and unless one can 
show a highly particularized pass with countless 
indorsements thereon one is turned back most 
unceremoniously. 

In Lille, where the booming of the big guns 
is to be heard all day and night, the hatred of the 
German is something that awes you. Not that 
it is given vocal expression ; it w^ould be better if 
it were. It is in the actions of the people that 
you read it. You see Women step off the pave- 
ments when German officers come near, or stop 
dead and turn their faces away. You see little 
children quiet their play, and the men go by with 
eyes straight ahead. In the shops the officers are 
waited on, but never an unnecessary word is 
wasted on them. 

It must be said that the Germans have not 
quarreled with this condition. ]VIany of them 
told me frankly that they understood it, and in- 
stead of resentment, they felt a sympathy. It 
weighed so heavily upon me, being usually in the 
company of German officers, that I pinned a little 
American flag upon my campaign coat, and that 

254 



CAPTIVE BELGIUM 

always made a difference. More of a difference, 
I found, in Belgium, where the Americans are 
helping largely to feed the people, than in 
France, where they seem to feel that America 
was derelict in not fighting with the Allies. 

Lille gave the name to lisle, the silk-white cot- 
ton thread that was first made there. This in- 
dustry still continues in a half-hearted sort of 
way, and so do the lace and embroidery works, 
the employees being virtually all women. 

Nearer the front at Cambrai, where cambric 
linen was first made and named, the hatred was 
even more pronounced. Cambrai is the head- 
quarters of Field-Marshal Crown Prince Rup- 
precht of Bavaria, who commands the group of 
three armies now fighting at the Somme. In 
occupied France the German officers and soldiers 
all wear covers over their regimental insignia. 
H This is to keep information as to the disposition 
of the troops from the natives, most of whom act 
as spies, and, despite every effort of the Germans, 
succeed in maintaining communication with the 
armies of their beloved France. 

When I was in Lille it was announced that 
the 20,000 or so young men and women who had 

255 



INSIDE TIi£ GERMAN EMPIRE 

been expatriated by the Germans were to be re- 
turned to their French homes. The announce- 
ment was received with great joy. The German 
explanation of the seizure of these people was 
that they had been needed for field work in other 
parts of France and Belgium, and that only 
those had been taken who would not work or 
were of dubious reputation. 

It is hard, no matter how deep the feeling, to 
keep hatred at a razor edge, and among the poorer 
classes a sort of camaraderie has sprung up be- 
tween them and the German soldiers billeted in 
their houses. One family at Cambrai was tear- 
fully distressed over the serious wounding of two 
of the Germans who had been their "guests." 

The efficiency of the Germans shows itself in 
the manner in which the trains are operated 
through Belgium and France right up to the very 
battle-line itself. I took a sleeping-car in Ber- 
lin — used only by officers, ordinary soldiers and 
civilians going in day-cars — and rode through to 
Cambrai. The railroad continues from there to 
Peronne, but this stretch is being used for ammu- 
nition and supply shipments. 

The trains and tracks are guarded by soldiers 
256 



CAPTIVE BELGIUM 

who are stationed about every five hundred yards 
apart, with special guards on the bridges. All 
through Belgium and France pathetic reminders 
of peace days are to be found in the signs in Eng- 
lish in the railroad stations, reading, "Take the 
Ostend-Dover route — cheapest and quickest to 
England." 

In France, at the reserve points, the German 
officers get meat only once a day. Their early 
breakfast consisted of a frightful mess called 
coffee, and bread and jam. Eggs were not to 
be had. 

With that love of home characteristic of the 
Frenchman, many of the people, in the villages 
along the front, even those directly under fire, 
have not fled, but are living in their cellars, which 
they improvise into bomb-proofs, with long stove- 
pipes used as chimneys sticking though holes 
knocked in the sidewalks. 

As soon as the Germans took possession of the 
smaller places in Belgium and France they or- 
dered that the schools continue, and frequently 
detailed men and officers to this work if regular 
schoolmasters were not to be found. It is the 
proud boast of the Germans in Belgium that they 

257 



INSIDE THE GERMAN EMPIRE 

have greatly increased school attendance, and 
they declare that if they remain much longer in 
that country its present high figure of illiteracy 
will be lowered. 

Wherever they go the Germans establish 
central stations for the collection of old bot- 
tles, old paper, and odds and ends of rubber, 
leather and metal. But the first thing they 
do is to test all drinking water and placard the 
polluted streams. Whenever these are found, 
neither villagers nor soldiers are permitted to 
drink from them under penalty of court-martial, 
every household being compelled to boil a certain 
quantity of water every day. 

Recently the Beichsbank recalled all the Ger- 
man money in circulation in Belgium and re- 
placed it with Belgian money issued against Bel- 
gian security. The change was welcomed by the 
Belgians as being in a small way a recognition of 
their entity. Most of the Brussels papers are 
still being published, though in emasculated form. 
The Government supports two papers there, the 
"Belgische Kurier" and the "Bruesseller Tages- 
zeitung." 

The Belgians are not fond of the Germans, 
^8 



CAPTIVE BELGIUM 

but neither do the Germans hke the Belgians. 
There is a marked difference to be seen in the 
attitude of the Germans toward the French. 
With the Belgians they are curt and severe and 
with the French they are almost sympathetic. 
Every German believes that France is being 
"bled white," as they say, by England, who, they 
add, purposes reducing France to such a condi- 
tion that she will always be a vassal state. 

Because Germany has thus far declined to give 
any official assurance regarding the reestablish- 
ment of Belgium into a separate state, there is a 
fear in the minds of the Belgians as to what is to 
happen to them. Perhaps this uncertainty has 
been an added depression to the Belgian spirit in 
comparison to that of France, where, no matter 
how much they may be suffering now, they feel 
certain that they will soon be reunited to their 
brothers. 

But most of the Germans in Belgium think 
that Belgium is unnecessarily alarmed as to her 
future. They feel that Germany has learned a 
lesson in the danger of breeding hatred through 
her possession of Alsace-Lorraine, and they think 
that she has small wish to add to that heritage. 

259 



INSIDE THE GERMAN EMPIRE 

The officers and soldiers in Belgium and 
France are the most outspoken opponents of the 
plan, sometimes urged to hold Belgium and a 
part of the occupied French territory. "No 
more of that, for God's sake!" said one distin- 
guished officer. "We see what Alsace-Lorraine 
brought us, so in our own interest let us give Bel- 
gium and France back their conquered territory 
rather than make certain, as it would, another 
war." 



260 



CHAPTER XIX 

BLEEDING POLAND AND HER NEIGHBOKS 

Poland a no-man's land, left to die — DiflBculties of relief work — 
The Jewish question — The cliild who spilled the family's soup 
— The work of the Rockefeller Relief Commission — Preserv- 
ing the manhood of the prisoners — The menace of tuberculosis 
— Jewish destitution — Children too weak to learn to walk — 
German resentment against Americans hampers relief work — 
The Allies' refusal to aid relief on conditions acceptable to 
Germany — The new Polish Kingdom, the Polish army, and 
what they mean. 

Nowhere in bleeding Europe has war's horror 
displayed itself so terribly as in Poland, Lithu- 
ania, and Galicia. Nowhere have the blows 
fallen so hard, nowhere is the after-suifering of 
the civilians so great, and nowhere are they so 
helpless to aid themselves. For they have no 
food, no clothes, no money, and little hope. The 
rise and fall of the tides of war in the east have 
left their marks on the millions stranded in the 
places they once called, and still do call, home. 
What the Russians left in their advance they de- 
stroyed in their retreat rather than let the Ger- 

261 



INSIDE THE GERMAN EMPIRE 

mans benefit by it. Everything burnable was 
put to the torch. All that are left are the graves 
of the dead, the emaciated bodies of the living, 
and the shell-scarred land, denuded of almost 
every trace of vegetation. 

This great section is a no-man's land. The na- 
tions have been so busied bandaging their own 
wounds that this portion has been left to die. 
And the efforts to help have been, if not com- 
pletely frustrated, seriously hindered by the Al- 
lies' refusal to let Red Cross work go on as in 
Belgium. Even the President's personal appeal 
that the belligerents agree upon some method 
that would systematize the relief- work along lines 
followed in other areas failed because of the sharp 
restrictions that the Allies believed themselves 
justified in imposing uj)on any supplies that 
might be sent to the stricken region. 

The only way that life has been maintained at 
all has been through the giant work of the Jewish 
relief and the Polish and the Lithuanian associa- 
tions, aided by the Rockefeller commission, which 
has been doing work of a remarkable nature here 
and elsewhere. 

Germany has undertaken to aid and systema- 
262 



BLEEDING POLAND 

tize the work. But Russia has not participated. 
On the contrary, she has decHned, and has even 
refused permission to cross her frontiers to the 
official representatives of the Jewish Rehef As- 
sociations of America, which have raised more 
than five milhon dollars for their work. Rabbi 
Magnes of New York, who was their special 
agent, was denied the privilege of entering the 
Czar's domains when he went to Stockholm at 
the beginning of September, although before he 
left this country he had been assm-ed by Russia's 
representatives that all courtesy would be shown 
him. The refusal further handicapped the or- 
ganization of the relief-work. 

Other agencies were likewise refused permis- 
sion because their missions were under suspicion, 
and so efficient cooperation through Russian cen- 
ters has thus far failed. 

Several of the leaders of this work in Germany 
say that many of the inhabitants who actually are 
in direct want are refusing the proffered aid be- 
cause of a fear, perhaps groundless, but never- 
theless wide-spread, that if they did, Russia 
would punish them when she regains control of 
this region, if she does. These unfortunates, in 

263 



INSIDE THE GERMAN EMPIRE 

whom the fright is very real, beheve that if they 
take aid that comes through German sources they 
will later be charged with being German spies 
and with having "maintained illicit communica- 
tion with the enemy." 

The situation is made more acute because of 
the great number of Jews in this region. 

Russia, Germany, and Austria have their Jew- 
ish question, and they fear the added complica- 
tion if unrestricted emigration were permitted 
from the affected area. Also they want to keep 
the people there to rebuild the land. 

How great a hardship this "hands off" method 
is working can be seen from conditions in parts 
of Poland. There the general hunger is relieved 
by central kitchens the supplies of which are so 
limited that as a general rule only one pail of a 
liquid they call soup is allowed to each person 
daily. Rabbi Magnes tells of a family of four 
young children, the eldest a girl of twelve, their 
mother dead, their father killed, living with aged 
grandparents and a blind aunt. Two of the chil- 
dren were in the habit of going to the kitchen 
every day for the seven pails of soup on which 
the family lived. One day the eldest girl slipped, 

264? 



BLEEDING POLAND 

and falling, spilled the contents of the five pails 
she carried on a stick. She went back to the 
kitchen in the hope of getting more, but the last 
drop had been licked out of the pot by the des- 
perately hungry ones, some of whom had not 
even got their regular allotment because the sup- 
ply was hmited. So that day these seven un- 
fortunates tried to keep bodies and souls together 
with two small cupfuls divided among them. 
This is not an exaggerated case. In many of the 
outlying districts where no kitchens have as yet 
been established there have been weeks in which 
no prepared food of any kind had been given to 
the people. 

The situation is complicated still further by 
the difficulty of money transmission; but that 
problem is being partly solved by perfecting the 
method of wireless transfer of funds between 
America and Germany. 

The political future of Poland attracts much 
attention, but before politics can be played, the 
people must be saved ; less attention is needed on 
their future government and more on their pres- 
ent necessities. Before there can be a govern- 
ment there must be a people ; if haste is not made 

265 



INSIDE THE GERMAN EMPIRE 

the question of government will solve itself : none 
will be left to be governed. 

Because the conditions are so shocking and im- 
mediate the Rockefeller War Relief Commission 
has begun an active participation in the rescue- 
work. This special organization of the Rocke- 
feller Foundation was sent to Europe some time 
ago for the purpose of studying the charitable 
needs there and of suggesting and administering 
the work which the Rockefeller philanthropy was 
to undertake. 

Its chief purpose was to find a way to spend 
money. It is in the charge of Warwick Greene, 
for several years commissioner of public works 
in the Philippines, and a man with remarkable 
organization ability; and Reginald Foster, a for- 
mer Harvard athlete, is the secretary. 

This Rockefeller relief, in a quiet way, has 
participated heavily, to the extent of millions, in 
the European war charities, working alone and 
through the famous "C. R. B." (Commission 
for Relief in Belgium and France). Its opera- 
tion is along hard-headed, practical lines, and 
every dollar of the three or four millions that have 
been expended has produced actual results. Be- 

266 



BLEEDING POLAND 

fore this conmiission spends any of its unlimited 
funds it must be shown that a need actually 
exists. 

Apart from its aid to the C. R. B., and its co- 
operation in the Polish-Lithuanian-Galician re- 
lief, the commission has engaged in an interesting 
and valuable work — that of seeking to protect 
and elevate the condition of the vast nmnber of 
war prisoners to be found in every one of the 
belhgerent countries. 

On the theory that the fearful destruction of 
this war makes manhood one of the rare commodi- 
ties of the world, the Rockefeller commission is 
setting itself a definite task of preserving man- 
hood, in numbers and in health, for the benefit of 
posterity. 

The best way of stopping the flow of this 
stream of destruction would be to stop the war; 
but as this seems a task rather beyond its ability, 
the commission is taking the next best course — 
that of keeping alive, both in spirit and in body, 
those whom the war has spared. 

It is calculated that there are 4,000,000 and 
more prisoners of war in Europe to-day, and it 
is the objective of the Rockefeller relief to save 

267 



I. 



INSIDE THE GERMAN EMPIRE 

tliem to the human race^ and to save them in mind 
as well as body. Funds are being made available 
to change the prisoners from mere caged animals, 
a circumstance not infrequently found, back to 
thinking human beings. 

The philosophy of this Rockefeller relief is like 
that animating the various other work of the 
Rockefeller Foundation, which has given hun- 
dreds of millions to charity, but always in so 
practical a way that the charge has been made 
that it "lacks heart impulse." If the actual re- 
sults of the work in Europe are a fair criterion 
of the value of this "lack," then it is not difficult 
to believe they lack a virtue. 

The Rockefeller work aims not only at the de- 
velopment of methods to keep down the death- 
rate of the prison camps, but to keep the men in 
such condition that when they are released to their 
homes they may repopulate the lands where mil- 
lions of lives have paid one of the costs of war 
with strong and healthy children. 

The chief menace that the relief work faces in 
the devastated areas and in the prisons is the 
fearful spread of tuberculosis due to malnutri- 
tion. Accordingly, the relief is conducted along 

268 



BLEEDING POLAND 

lines best calculated to offset this danger. Prison 
life, even under the most favorable conditions, 
leaves its taint upon the subject. Sooner or 
later the restriction of liberty breaks a man 
spiritually and mentally; and to this fate now is 
being added tubercular ravages. 

With most of the eight millions and more in 
the Polish, Lithuanian, and Galician districts — 
perhaps half of them Jews — both the spiritual 
and physical degeneration are ever-present dan- 
gers. These millions have nothing to do, noth- 
ing wherewith to work, nothing to wear, and 
nothing to eat. The relief work has been torn 
by international dissensions and by internal 
jealousies. It was to effect a system of admin- 
istration that the Rev. Dr. Magnes was sent 
abroad. It was hoped that he might be able to 
evolve a method whereby the opposition of many 
of the Jews in this country to contributing to 
funds that were to be expended by Germans 
would be overcome, for the members of this re- 
ligion are as widely separated in their war senti- 
ments as are those of other sects. 

Felix Warburg, a banker, is one of the chief 
heads of the Jewish Joint Distribution Commit- 

269 



INSIDE THE GERMAN EMPIRE 

tee in this country, and he said recently that if 
the relief work does not become immediately ef- 
fective, in two more years the Jewish popula- 
tions of West Prussia, Poland, Galicia, and 
Lithuania are doomed to destruction. Proper 
relief work in Poland and Lithuania alone re- 
quires more than $5,000,000 expenditure annu- 
ally. In 1915 the American Jews raised some- 
thing less than this sum, and plans are now un- 
der way to raise forthwith another sum equal in 
amount. 

The Polish Relief Organization, in which Ig- 
nace Paderewski is a leading figure, has taken a 
heavy share in this rescue work, and so has the 
Lithuanian Relief Committee, which has its head- 
quarters in New York. The funds of these or- 
ganizations have been in part distributed through 
the Archbishop of Posen. One of the fearful 
conditions in Poland is that hundreds of thou- 
sands of new-born children, through inanition, do 
not learn how to walk, or, if they learn, forget 
how to use their legs. They are all rachitic, and 
the disease is progressive. There are districts 
where not a single child under five years of age 
is still alive. They starve to death while the. 

270 



BLEEDING POLAND 

nations are debating the terms on which relief 
may be sent. 

It should be said that the relief work of the 
Jews and others in this region is non-sectarian. 
In fact, this is a condition enforced by the laws 
of Germany which prohibits sectarian relief, and 
to guard against the violation of this ordinance 
the Government prefers to handle the funds 
itself. 

The situation in Warsaw and the immediately 
contiguous districts is good in comparison with 
the conditions existing in Wilna, Courland, 
Lithuanian Wilna, Suwalki-Grodno, the Bielos- 
tok region, and along the entire eastern front 
from Riga to the territories held by the Bug 
armies. Most of the affected area lies in the 
Ober-Ost Government, and a strong prohibition 
exists against moneys being sent out of one dis- 
trict into another. In other words, the funds 
must go direct to the points of distribution. 

Because of the bitter resentment against Amer- 
ica and the Americans, which even affected relief 
work and prejudiced the Germans against the 
American efforts, it has been found best to handle 
the situation through the erection of a strong 

271 



INSIDE THE GERMAN EMPIRE 

German committee, which deals with the Govern- 
ment direct instead of having the Americans act 
as distributors. Ambassador Gerard advised 
this course, reahzing that if it were not adopted 
the work would be seriously hindered. 

The refusal of the Allies to permit supplies to 
go through their lines to be used for relief work 
is based upon their inability to obtain from Ger- 
many a satisfactory assurance as to the disposi- 
tion that is to be made of these supplies. The 
proposals made by Germany were rejected by 
the Allies, and then in turn Germany rejected 
the conditions suggested by her enemies. The 
negotiations were finally taken up personally by 
President Wilson, who had to announce that his 
various proposals had been spurned by the bel- 
ligerents, and that his plan to have this country 
act officially in the suffering of Poland had come 
to naught. 

Germany's attitude to-day, as formally defined 
by Herr Zimmermann, is that the empire cannot 
go beyond her last proposal, wherein she ex- 
pressed her willingness to reserve the harvest and 
supplies that might be sent in to the civilian in- 

272 



BLEEDING POLAND 

habitants, and to the soldiers and poheing forces 
of the army of occupation as distinct from the 
other armies. On the ground that the occupying 
forces had the right of subsistence from the soil 
that they hold, Germany declined to exclude them 
from participation. 

While her peoples are starving, the discussion 
as to what government they shall have goes on. 
Many of the temporary passports issued to the 
subjects of the occupied areas called them citizens 
of the "Kingdom of Poland," in the summer of 
1916, but there was a well-defined understanding 
that "German interests should be first" in any 
political reconstruction to be brought about. 

There is talk of one of the younger sons of 
the Kaiser being given the throne, or, failing that, 
one of the members of the royal house of Austria, 
possibly as a sop to their feelings in the event of 
Austria undergoing a remaking. Another plan 
suggested is the selection of one of the Princes 
of the Bavarian, Saxon, or Wiirttemberg houses. 

Finally in November it was announced by Ger- 
many and Austria that Poland was to be rees- 
tablished as a separate kingdom under the pro- 

273 



INSIDE THE GERMAN EMPIRE 

tection of the two allies. But no definition of 
boundaries was made, and no ruler was named, 
so the announcement so far is merely a form. 

The only actual step taken was to grant the 
"right" to the new Poland to have an army. 
The assumption is general that this army, when 
it is raised, which will probably be done through 
conscription, will find it expedient to fight on the 
side of the central powers. 

In the meantime the German military remain 
as the actual rulers of the occupied land. 

While the German rule of the occupied dis- 
tricts has been marked by the free use of the 
Polish and Lithuanian languages in the courts, 
the schools, and the theaters, the German-imposed 
taxes have been very heavy. But apart from 
physical considerations, the Poles, always senti- 
mental, have a high regard for Panslavism. The 
majority of the Poles and Lithuanians incline to- 
ward a reestablished kingdom, with guaranteed 
rights that shall be sealed by Russia and the 
Allies. On the other hand, the majority of the 
Jews in the region favor the German protecto- 
rate. 

And while the talk of "free" Poland goes on, 
274* 



BLEEDING POLAND 

and effective action is deferred to await the mo- 
ment most advantageous to the bargainers, the 
unfortunate pawns in this game of barter are 
dying miserably by the thousands. 



275 



CHAPTER XX 

Germany's back door — austria-hungary 

The Balkanzug from Berlin, to Constantinople — Belief that war's 
decision will come in east — Polyglot Austria a millstone around 
Germany's neck — Hungarian strength a surprise — Bohemians 
accused of treachery — Viennese gaiety superficial — No parlia- 
ment in Austria since the war began — ^The partition of Aus- 
tria as predicted by a German — Nothing for Turkey — Francis 
Joseph's death and its significance — The new Emperor, 
Charles I — Austrian plans to prohibit further emigration and 
to force the return of emigrants now in the United States — ■ 
Austria necessary to Germany — Strong men of the Dual Em- 
pire are Hungarians — No love lost between the two realms — 
Hungary has borne brunt of the war — Serbian conditions are 
bettered. 

With Germany's front door on the sea locked 
by the British navy, she has fought bitterly and 
well to keep her back door open. No considera- 
tion of the empire in the war is complete without 
an examination into the conditions surrounding 
her ways to the south and east; for it is along 
these lines that her destiny lies, according to the 
belief of her students of politics. 

While Germany has tightened up the screws of 
her great machine and is thus far not seriously 

276 



GERMANY'S BACK DOOR 

shaken, she has been forced to go beyond the terri- 
tories Ijang immediately at her hand to protect 
her field of future expansion through Austria, 
the Balkans, and Turkey into Asia. The situa- 
tion in this region, therefore, has a direct bearing 
upon the fortunes of Germany apart from the 
merely military features of the war. 

Germany's activities have followed the tracks 
of the Balkanzug, which, to the German mind, is 
one of the real triumj^hs of the war. The former 
"Orient Express," which started from Paris and 
Antwerp, now has its main source in Berlin, and 
direct sleeping-cars run from there through 
Prague, Vienna, Budapest, and Belgrade into 
Constantinople. Each of these cities marks a 
point in the story of the battle of the central 
powers; each mile the train makes takes one 
through the varying changes that run the gamut 
from Western to Eastern civilization, from the 
densely populated centers of industry through 
the sparsely settled farm and herd regions until 
the human hive of Constantinople is reached. 

In this vast region to the south and east the 
Kaiser claims three allies, Austria-Hungary, 
Bulgaria, and Turkey. Against him stand Rou- 

277 



INSIDE THE GERMAN EMPIRE 

mania, Serbia, Montenegro, and, to a certain ex- 
tent, Albania; while Greece also, it seems prob- 
able, will be compelled by the Allies to aline her- 
self against him. 

There are many scholars who believe that the 
war's decision will be found in the East ; that as 
these seven Balkan nations and the dual mon- 
archy swing, so will swing victory or defeat. 
That is why the Germans lay such great store 
on the reduction of Serbia, the overrunning of 
Montenegro and Albania, the checking of Gen- 
eral Sarrail's offensive from Salonica, and the 
victories in Roumania. 

Perhaps they grew in popular thought as Aus- 
tria's weakness increased; perhaps they assimied 
greater significance as Russia advanced in Asiatic 
Turkey. The fires of public imagination must 
be stoked with pleasant fuel, otherwise they are 
apt to feed upon the morbid ; and Austria, viewed 
alone, is best described by that word. Nor is 
Turkey altogether a source of comfort to the 
Kaiser's realm. 

At the beginning of the war I was told by one 
of the commanding generals that Germany had 
entered the war with a millstone about her neck. 

278 




Underwood & Underwood 

KARL I. EMPEROR OF AT'STRIA 

who is also entitled 

KARL IV OP HUNGARY 



GERMANY'S BACK DOOR 

He meant Austria. In 1916 this sentiment was 
tempered with a certain admiration for the re- 
markable recuperative powers Austria had 
shown, although the feeling was still strong that 
Germany's fight was more difficult because, in 
addition to fighting for herself, she was fighting 
for what many in Germany call the "existence 
of the House of Hapsburg." 

Polyglot Austria, with fourteen different races 
theoretically * 'united" under one crown, but in 
reality each snapping at the others, has been the 
weak sister of the unified, homogeneous German 
Empire. 

But few of the Austrian shortcomings can be 
laid at the door of the other partner of the dual 
monarchy, Hungary. It is fair to say that Hun- 
gary has been one of the great surprises of the 
war. She has risen to her needs with a fidelity, 
a single-minded purpose, a courage, and an abil- 
ity that even her warmest friends did not ex- 
pect. 

While excuses may be made for Austria and 
lavish praise given Hungary, there is in Germany 
only contempt and censure for the Bohemian 
population of her southern ally. The Bohemians 

281 



INSIDE THE GERMAN EMPIRE 

are accused of being Panslavists and of looking 
to Russia as their natural protector. The secret 
belief in official Germany is that General Bru- 
siloff 's enormous quota of prisoners taken during 
his spring drive was due to the disaffection, not to 
say actual treachery, of the Bohemians, who are 
accused of having surrendered by brigades. 
This was one of the considerations that caused 
Germany to take over virtually all the commands 
of the Austrian army, although some of the Aus- 
trian leaders still retain the nominal titles. 

Austria and Germany are both tired of the war, 
but Austria shows it more than Germany does. 
The pretenses of Vienna are easily punctured 
despite the fevered gaiety at night. Viennese 
gaiety is much more wide-spread than that of 
Berlin, although this may be because Vienna is 
more used to disappointment than is the younger 
capital. 

The food conditions are less severe in Austria 
than in Germany, but while the supply may be 
greater, the failure of the Government to bring 
about a fair and equitable distribution has caused 
the prices to rise much higher than in the other 
empire. The rising prices have made the matter 

282 



GERMANY'S BACK DOOR 

of food a greater hardship for the poor. There 
is less of a middle class in Austria proper than can 
be found in Germany ; the division between riches 
and poverty is as sharp and as wide as between 
the aristocracy and the common people. 

There has been no session of the Reichsrath in 
Austria since the war began. The internal af- 
fairs of the country have been in the hands of the 
minister of national defense, who in many ways 
has the power of a dictator. The press is sharply 
circumscribed, and virtually nothing is permitted 
to go out over the wires; that is why we get so 
little news of Austria. 

Germany is puzzled by the question of what is 
to happen to Austria. If the central powers are 
victorious, the answer is simple : force will enable 
the dual empire to endure a while longer. But 
if the central empires should be defeated, or if 
a compromise should be effected, then many in 
Germany believe the realm of the Hapsburgs 
will lose its present form. 

One outline made by a clever German politi- 
cian, who said it was one he had heard frequently 
discussed, had it that Austria proper was to be- 
come a grand duchy under Francis Joseph's suc- 

283 



INSIDE THE GERMAN EMPIRE 

cessor, and was to take its place as a member of 
the German Empire; that Hungary was to be 
made into a separate kingdom under the rulership 
either of one of the Haspburg heirs or of one of 
Kaiser Williehn's sons, the kingdom to be bound 
by the closest ties to Germany; that a royal 
prince of German blood was to be given the crown 
of Bohemia, which was to be renationalized and 
made into a separate kingdom affiliated with the 
Teutonic empire, and finally that Poland was to 
be similarly treated. The plan went on that 
Bulgaria was to be made supreme in the Balkans; 
that Serbia was to be divided between Bulgaria 
and Austria ; Roumania to be split between Hun- 
gary and Bulgaria, and that in the event of 
Greece showing a continued friendliness, she was 
also to be rewarded; Montenegi'o and Albania 
were to be apportioned between Austria and Bul- 
garia. 

Bulgaria, under the leadership of the astute 
Czar Ferdinand, called by the English "The 
Balkan Fox," never lets Germany forget her 
claims to a dominant position in Southeast Eu- 
rope. He is a member of a German ducal fam- 
ily, but from his French mother — she was a 

S84 



GERMANY'S BACK DOOR 

daughter of Louis Philippe of France — he gets 
his suavity and poKsh. 

It will be noticed that this scheme provides 
nothing for Turkey. On the contrary, the be- 
lievers in this disposition of territory contemplate 
the possibility of Bulgaria being rewarded with 
European Turkey. Further, it will be seen that 
this program is double in its possibilities of use: 
it can be made to fit Russia's continued hostility 
to the central powers, or by very slight changes, 
mostly affecting Poland and Roumania, it can be 
made to meet such conditions as would arise if 
Russia were to come over to the side of her pres- 
ent enemies. 

Map-making is a favorite sport of the politi- 
cians in Europe in these days. It is by no means 
confined to Germany ; in fact, it was the amateur 
cartographers in England who first set Germany 
the example. 

Austria's susceptibility to political changes is 
made the greater through the fact that Francis 
Joseph, after sixty-eight years on the throne, 
died in November in his eighty-seventh year of 
life. Before that there were frequent secret re- 
ports in Austria and Germany of his death, but 

285 



INSIDE THE GERMAN EMPIRE 

these were scotched just when they became most 
vehement by having the old man show himself in 
public. Nothing but ocular demonstration to a 
large number could convince the people, for they 
were only too ready to suspect that some trick of 
substitution might be practised upon them. 

The murders of Serajewo killed one Austrian 
emperor-who-was-to-be and crowned another. 
When Francis Ferdinand, nephew of the old em- 
peror, was slain in the Bosnian town on June 28, 
1914, the succession passed to his nephew, the 
Archduke Charles Francis Joseph, who, upon the 
death of the emperor on November 21, 1916, in- 
herited the troubled throne of the dual monarchy. 

Had Francis Ferdinand lived, there are many 
who believe that he would have succeeded in re- 
moving the disabilities in the way of his own 
children, who had been barred from the succes- 
sion because their mother, Sophia of Hohenberg, 
had not been of royal birth. The sorrow that the 
assassination produced was tempered, to the Aus- 
trians, by a sense of relief, for they had feared 
the possibility of civil disturbance that would 
have been created by action that Francis Ferdi- 
nand might have taken in behalf of his offspring. 

^6 



GERMANY'S BACK DOOR 

He had not been popular, and he had been feared ; 
while his successor as crown prince, the present 
emperor, has always been liked for his sunpHcity, 
his youth, and his devotion to the traditions of 
his native land. 

Charles Francis Joseph, who has styled him- 
self Emperor Charles I of Austria and King 
Charles IV of Hungary, is 29 years old. He 
seems to be possessed of no sharply marked men- 
tal or physical characteristics; and unless he de- 
velops unexpected qualities, he will become a cog 
in the powerful governmental machine that suc- 
ceeds in holding the heterogeneous empire to- 
gether, although its break-up has been expected 
for many years. 

Immediately upon becoming Crown Prince, he 
attached to his suite Count Berchtold, formerly 
Foreign Minister of the empire, who has been in 
charge of his political instruction. There is no 
good reason of any nature to give credence to the 
English reports that Charles is inclined toward a 
separate peace between Austria and the Allies. 
On the contrary there is every reason to believe 
that he is devoted to the task of strengthening the 
bonds that tie his country to Germany. 

287 



INSIDE THE GERMAN EMPIRE 

The Hapsburg rulers are bound by tradition, 
perhaps to a greater extent than any other of 
the royal houses of Europe, and Charles I is a 
creature of family precedent enshackled by an- 
cient usages. As soon as it became certain that 
he would be the Austrian ruler, the usual steps 
were taken to create for him a popularity and a 
position of respect in the minds of his subjects. 
His name was used in connection with many of 
the more important Austrian military operations, 
and nominally he was in charge of all the Aus- 
trian armies on the East front, although these 
forces were actually in command of old Hinden- 
burg. 

He is the son of the half mad Archduke Otto 
who died in 1906. Otto was the son of Francis 
Joseph's brother, Archduke Louis, who was once 
declared "mentally irresponsible" by the Vien- 
nese courts. He was married five years ago to 
the Princess Zita of Bourbon-Parma, whose 
father Robert lost his dukedom when Italy be- 
came unified in 1859. The family of the new 
empress is really a branch of the Hapsburgs, and 
so the imperial pair are related, although not 
closely. The yomig empress — she is twenty- 

288 



GERMANY'S BACK DOOR 

four — has lived the greater part of her hfe in 
Vienna, always surrounded by the trappings of 
royalty but never accustomed to great luxury, 
for her family was poor. She is one of nineteen 
children, her father, Duke Robert, having had 
seven childi-en by his first wife and twelve by the 
second, several of whom are mentally unde- 
veloped. 

Germany and Austria are both certain to re- 
strict if not to prohibit emigration after the war. 
Austria has already put this into practical effect 
by thi'owing such difficulties in the way of any 
one seeking to leave the empire that it is almost 
impossible to do so. 

Of even more importance is the plan Austria 
has evolved of causing immigration into her lands 
of many of her subjects now in the United States. 
The Austro-Hungarian consul-generals in the 
United States are ready to put the scheme into 
execution just as soon as the end of the war is 
reached. 

There are three or four million people in this 
country of Austro-Hungarian descent. A por- 
tion of these are to be tempted back by the prom- 
ise of flattering wages and special living conces- 

289 



INSIDE THE GERMAN EMPIRE 

sions, while others are to be urged back by more 
forceful means. This method will apply espe- 
cially to the large number in this country who 
have failed to take out American citizenship pa- 
pers and who are therefore still Austrian sub- 
jects and, as such, amenable to Austrian law. 
Much the same system is to be employed with 
these as Russia has used to force her subjects 
back to fight for her. Austria will notify her 
subjects resident in this country to return to the 
motherland, and if they do not, they will be pun- 
ished vicariously through the fining or imprison- 
ment of relatives still living in the old country. 

Austria expects to recover almost a million of 
her subjects in this way, most of them iron- 
workers, steel- workers, and miners. They are 
mostly Huns, Poles, Slovaks, Croatians, Slo- 
venes, and Ruthenians. More than Austria's fu- 
ture is in the balance; the whole scheme of Ger- 
man expansion is contingent upon Austrian wel- 
fare. That is one reason for her plans for re- 
population. 

Austria's invulnerability is necessary to the 
Pan-German scheme to secure the "road to the 
East," from Hamburg to the Persian Gulf. 

290 



GERMANY'S BACK DOOR 

That is why Austria was supported in her quarrel 
with Serbia; for Austrian hegemony is essential 
to Germany in the Balkans, unless Russia be sub- 
stituted, as she may yet be if she can be won 
away from her alinement with the Allies. That 
is why Austria has never been abandoned to her 
fate ; that is why Austrian soldiery has been stiff- 
ened by German troops and put under German 
leadership ; that is why neither Germany nor Aus- 
tria has even remotely approached any assurance 
as to the reestablishment of Serbia, lest in other 
hands that kingdom might again prove an ob- 
stacle in "the road." 

So far has this great scheme been carried that 
plans have been drawn and organizations are now 
under way for giant inland waterways over which 
1000-ton vessels can pass by rivers and canals 
from the North Sea to the Black Sea through the 
Danube. Included in the network connecting 
the Danube with the German rivers are to be 
the Rhine, the Elbe, the Weser, and other 
streams. 

Both banks of the Danube are essential for the 
success of the proposition, and that is one of the 
reasons for the active double campaign waged 

291 



INSIDE THE GERMAN EMPIRE 

in Roumania by Mackensen and Falkenhayn. 
Had Roumania remained neutral, she would 
have had to be compensated before she would 
have agreed to the undertaking; her belliger- 
ency has changed the price from land or gold 
to human lives. With Austria and Bulgaria al- 
lies and Serbia conquered, Geraiany controls the 
whole course of the Danube except the part run- 
ning through Roumania. 

Hungary has a great interest in the outcome 
of the war, and a definite one in the "road to the 
East." She will profit by it if Germany does. 
The end of the war, whether the Allies or the 
central powers be victorious, will find Hungary 
supreme in the dual monarchy. She has stood 
up well under fire. Perhaps it is because each 
of the twenty million of her people demands the 
right of participation in her affairs. Hungary is 
more democratic than Germany, while Austria 
is one of the most despotically ruled powers of 
Europe. Hungary's Parliament has been virtu- 
ally in constant session since the war began. 

Baron Burian, minister of foreign affairs in 
the dual monarchy, is the one officer of the joint 
service who is of importance at this time. He 

292 




(OUXT STEFAN TISZA OF HUNGARY, I'UIME MINISTER 



GERMANY'S BACK DOOR 

handles the external politics of the combined em- 
pire. He is the creatm-e of Count Tisza, premier 
of Hungary, who is to all intents the real factor 
in the dual government to-day, although he holds 
no actual office under it. There is a separate 
premier and cabinet for Austria, but they are 
insignificant. This was shown when Count 
Stuergkh, the Austrian premier, was assas- 
sinated. His death had no political effect 
whatever. 

In Hungary are to be found the strong men 
of the empire: Andrassy, Tisza's hereditary en- 
emy, and a tremendous Germanophile ; Karolyi, 
leader of the Hungarian independents, opposed 
to German domination and fearful of Hungary's 
eventual absorption into the German empire; 
Apponyi and Polonyi. The pro-Germanism of 
Andrassy is a heritage of his house, his father, 
a cabinet minister, having been one of those who 
established the Triple Alliance — the Dreihund — 
of Germany, Austria-Hungary, and Italy. By 
many Hungarians who believe in the indepen- 
dence that Karolyi preaches, Andrassy and his 
followers are regarded as blood-red traitors, for 
the Hungarians do not love the Germans. They 

295 



INSIDE THE GERMAN EMPIRE 

accept them because they thmk them necessary to 
Hungary's safety and future. 

Nor is the fiery, emotional Hungarian any too 
happy with his Austrian brother. Kossuth is a 
never-to-be-forgotten name. To a prominent 
Hungarian, my train companion, I talked of the 
beauty of Haydn's music, to which the Austrian 
national anthem is set. 

"That music is never played in Hungary," he 
replied, with a fro^vn. "We Hungarians do not 
like to hear it. It was the music the Austrian 
military bands played as the scores of companions 
of Louis Kossuth, the patriot leader of the Revo- 
lution of '48, were led to the gallows and shame- 
fully put to death. That is why we shall never 
like it. In Hungary we play our own national 
air. Besides, that song is for the emperor, so 
it has no application for us ; we have no emperor, 
we have a king." 

When Roumania made her unexpected attack 
upon the central powers in September it was 
Hungary that bore the brunt. She had been 
stripped of defenders where the first blow fell, 
but the lack was soon repaired; for the protest 
she made stirred even official Germany to imme- 

296 



GERMANY'S BACK DOOR 

diate action for fear the Allies' efforts to disen- 
gage Hungary from the central powers and per- 
suade her to conclude a separate peace, which 
the English ]3apers regard as possible, might 
succeed. 

Roumania's declaration of war hurt Hungary 
in other ways than through the short-lived inva- 
sion, for from Roumania she had drawn much of 
her food supply. 

Conquered Serbia also is affected by Rouma- 
nia's entrance, for her people were being fed by 
Roumanian supplies obtained by the central pow- 
ers, and now this source has been shut off. But an 
American who has made an official investigation 
in behalf of the Rockefeller War Relief Commis- 
sion reports that the conditions in Serbia to-day 
are by no means serious. Serbia is better off 
than any of the other conquered territories. Her 
people are not happy, but they do not starve. 

The American Red Cross Relief Commission, 
which has been handling Serbian relief for the 
Austrian and German governments, under the 
direction of Washington, and with the consent of 
the Allies, had completed its work and expected 
to return to the United States before the winter 

297 



INSIDE THE GERMAN EMPIRE 

of 1916-17. Dr. Edward Stuart, in charge of 
the commission, said that with the regulations 
which had been put in force, the crops raised in 
Serbia would be sufficient for the needs of the 
Serbians. The commission found the Austrian 
and German authorities obliging and efficient in 
cooperating with the relief work. 



£98 



CHAPTER XXI 

TURKEY AND THE BALKAN CALDRON 

Roumania's defection a bitter pill to Germany — Balkans the 
"powder-barrel of the world" — German propaganda in the 
Balkans — 'Allies help it in Greece — Turkey fighting with an 
ally she dislikes for a future she fears — Turco-German alliance 
selfish on both sides — Germans indifferent to Turkish fate — 
Vivid word-picture drawn by American in Turkey — Tells of 
economic weakness — Of beggars who beg in all languages — 
That "something" may happen to Enver Bey — Of the coolness 
towards the Germans — Of the scarcity and price of foods. 

Roumania's defection was a bitter pill for Ger- 
many to swallow, and with reason. Roumania 
under a Hohenzollern (the present king is a mem- 
ber of the elder branch of the Kaiser's family) 
was the special ward of Germany, which organ- 
ized, trained, and officered her armies, taught her 
how to make guns and ammunition, and estab- 
lished her industries. All these resources are now 
being used against the foraier friend. 

In Germany one always hears that Bratianu, 
the Roumanian premier, was bought by the Allies' 
gold ; but as that is a common charge against all 

299 



INSIDE THE GERMAN EMPIRE 

the empire's enemies — and most of the neutrals, 
too — it makes no deep impression. 

Although Bulgaria is German's stanch 
friend, the Germans are sick of the whole Balkan 
question, and disgusted with the peoples of that 
region. 

"Had it not been for the irresponsibility and 
unworthiness of the Balkans," said a prominent 
liberal German statesman, "this war would never 
have come, or at least not for a long time. There 
is only one solution to the question, and that is 
to wipe the Balkans off the map ; but since that 
cannot be, they must be taken over and civilized, 
so that they will no longer be the powder-barrel 
of the world." 

I heard in Berlin that the German Govern- 
ment had spent something like $30,000,000 in 
propaganda work in the Balkans among the offi- 
cials and civilians and in subsidizing the native 
press. German expenditures were great in Rou- 
mania, but apparent^ resultless, and Roumania's 
entrance into the war is set dovv^n as another fail- 
ure of German diplomacy, which is most exe- 
crated in Germany itself. 

In Greece the Teutonic efforts seem to have 
300 



TURKEY AND THE BALKAN CALDRON 

borne better fruit. A real opposition to the plan 
of the Allies to force Greece into the war exists, 
although Berlin fears that eventually Greece 
will be compelled to enter the conflict on the side 
of the Allies. 

The German representatives who were ex- 
pelled from Athens by the Allies said that Greece 
was being starved into submission, and that, to 
save their lives, the natives would have to yield to 
Allied pressure. Baron von Schenck, chief of 
the German propaganda in Athens, when he was 
put on a ship and sent away, said: "I leave my 
work of making friends for Germany to the 
agents of the Allies. They will make more for 
us than I did." He prophesied truly, for the 
occurrences in Athens during the closing months 
of 1916 showed how little popularity the Allies 
had built up in the country they have virtually 
seized, much as Germany did Belgium, save for 
the fact that there was in Greece no armed or 
organized resistance. The conditions in Greece 
are such at present that the neutral relief organi- 
zations are beginning a campaign of succor 
among the population. That and the Venizelos 
revolution are two of the fruits of war brought 

301 



INSIDE THE GERMAN EMPIRE 

to the Greeks by the refusal of either side to per- 
mit Greece to maintain a position of unquahfied 
neutrality. 

Tiu'key, the last of the points reached by the 
Balkanzug, is the most interesting. This claim 
can be made without recourse to her antiquity, 
but solely with reference to her present and her 
future. 

Turkey is fighting with an ally she dislikes for 
a future she fears. Turkey knows that, what- 
ever the outcome of the war may be, her stay in 
Europe is limited. By casting her lot with the 
Germans, she reasoned, her retention of Constan- 
tinople might be prolonged. And so, to post- 
pone the inevitable, she chose to go with the 
central powers; for, had she not done so, she 
would have been carved into tidbits wherewith the 
Allies might tempt the Balkans to an espousal of 
their cause. She felt safer for the moment with 
Germany, especially as she had no immediate fear 
of the Bulgars, since Bulgaria was grinding an 
ax to be used on Roumania and Serbia on account 
of the teiTitories wrenched away in the Second 
Balkan War. 

The Turks do not like the Germans, and the 
302 



TURKEY AND THE BALKAN CALDRON 

Germans have difficulty in stomaching the Turks. 
Frequently it is necessary for the German police 
to command the display of the Star and Crescent 
when flags are hung out to celebrate victories. 

If Turkey made her choice of German alliance 
for self-gain, Germany was equally selfish in 
electing the Turk to her friendship, and on this 
point there is a cynical frankness in Berlin. 
After Turkey has served her purpose to the Ger- 
mans, the majority of them are indifferent to her 
fate. This feeling became so widespread that it 
was necessary for the German Government to 
point out that the consummation of the Teutonic 
"road to the East" may make it necessary to re- 
tain Turkish friendship, and so greater care 
should be employed in maintaining pleasant re- 
lations. But the Germans, most of whom beheve 
that their destiny lies with Russia upon or even 
before the conclusion of this war, do not over- 
exert themselves to help the Turks except in a 
military way. 

Turkey has been a virtually unknown land 
since the war began. The few newspaper corre- 
spondents who have been there have been per- 
mitted to send out occasional rosy-colored inter- 
SOS 



INSIDE THE GERMAN EMPIRE 

views with various officials, but not a word as to 
the real conditions has been permitted to get by 
the censors. In fact, newspaper men are given 
scant encouragement to remain in Turkey, and 
the few foreigners still there are so circumscribed 
in their movements that they have small oppor- 
tunity for observation. Some vivid and interest- 
ing details of Constantinople as she is after two 
years of war are contained in a letter written to 
me in October, 1916, by a recent arrival in the 
sultan's capital, who, because of his powerful con- 
nections, was able to go almost everywhere and 
see almost everything in the city. He writes ; 

I had the intoxicating good fortune to proceed to 
Turkey from Vienna by the Balkanzug. Till the 
Hungarian boundary it keeps up a jerk-water rate of 
speed. In Serbia it gets tired. One has plenty of 
opportunity to look at the Serbian landscape. Very 
few traces of the war are still to be seen. The country 
seems to be pretty well planted, though there are few 
men in sight except German soldiers. The Germans 
must have some sort of coal-tar formula for replenish- 
ing their army; nothing else could explain the plenty 
of their troops. We saw trainloads of Turkish soldiers 
moving north, sturdy men, well equipped, chanting to 
the accompaniment of a sort of Eastern bagpipe. 

304 




FERDINAND I. KING OF THE BULGARIANS 



TURKEY AND THE BALKAN CALDRON 

Nish, the ancient capital of Serbia, reminds one of 
Long Island City in the old days when it was still an 
independent city. There were the same goats and the 
same tin cans lying about, remnants of Standard Oil 
containers. These last, all over the near-East, have 
taken the place of the old goatskins for water-carrying. 
Anywhere in the Balkans, and they say as far east as 
Samarkand, one may see water-carriers staggering 
along under the burden of well-filled ex-oil cans. 

Once the train is through Serbia and Bulgaria and 
across the Turkish frontier, it merely goes picnicking 
along at holiday speed. This portion of the road was 
built on a kilometric guarantee granted to the con- 
struction company. It proved advantageous, there- 
fore, to crowd as many kilometers into the short dis- 
tance from the border to Constantinople as possible. 
And this part of the line gives a very good imitation of 
a rattle-snake with a cramp. 

European Turkey ought to be a fertile, well-culti- 
vated district, supporting thousands of happy peasants. 
But now it is merely a war-worn, barren waste of roll- 
ing country-side, with few or no farms until one is close 
up to Constantinople. 

The latter was really worth waiting for. Baedeker 
and Pierre Loti have not lied in description of its won- 
derful location. The people, however, are not inspir- 
ing. They are a striking proof of the principle of the 
survival of the unfittest. The peasants from the 
country are a different breed of men. I have seen 

307. 



INSIDE THE GERMAN EMPIRE 

plenty of them driven in to become soldiers. Naturally, 
now only the old men and young boys are left. But 
even the older men of fifty — and I saw many such 
among the recruits — bear themselves nobly and with a 
certain sturdy dignity. But the less said about the 
Levantine in the city the better. 

Economic conditions in Constantinople are those of 
Vienna intensified greatly in the minus direction. 
"After me the deluge" is here the winged word. All 
Turkey is being combed with a fine-toothed comb for 
food with which to feed the metropolis and the army. 
You see the flocks being driven in every day from the 
country. Hence food is plentiful — if you can pay for 
it. Some persons entertain the treasonable assumption 
that the Turkish pound has depreciated; others say 
that it is the price of commodities which has gone up. 
Suffice it to say that a small loaf of bread costs about 
twenty cents, and sugar twenty-five cents a pound. 
There are rumors that soon we shall have no flour at 
all. Coal and wood have become as diamonds; oil as 
Lachrimae Christi! Even the Government has recog- 
nized the impending crisis. There is big talk in all the 
papers that, because of the lack of men and beasts on 
the farms, the Government is going to use machinery 
on the farms. Quite a jump from the Old Testament 
plow used by the Turkish peasants to Mr. Perkins's 
complicated machinery, of which at the beginning of 
the war there was plenty rusting away, abandoned in 
the warehouses. Then the Government talks of the 

308 



TURKEY AND THE BALKAN CALDRON 

conscription of agricultural labor and a commission 
to purchase next year's crops and distribute them 
equitably all over the empire. This pretense of intro- 
ducing German efficiency and state socialism into a 
patriarchal despotism on short notice is one of the 
pathetic jokes of the war. 

Some queer things about the money situation here 
deserve notice. All the gold and coin has long ago 
gone out of existence. Paper is now the only medium. 
Unfortunately, the Turks, with their usual lack of fore- 
sight, have forgotten to provide any small paper money. 
They have made it a crime to use tram-tickets in lieu 
thereof. So it has become impossible to change a bill 
in any store to pay for a purchase. Next week the 
new small paper is to arrive, as usual here, two weeks 
after schedule. 

Another oddity of the money market is that Turkish 
paper is at a premium when compared with marks, and 
at a tremendous premium when compared with Austrian 
kronen. Yet nobody imagines for a moment that 
Turkish credit stands anywhere near that of the Teu- 
tonic countries. The secret of the situation is that 
the Germans are not getting paid for what they send 
to Turkey, but merely get Turkish I O Us, whereas, 
for all the food stuffs it has shipped to Germany, Tur- 
key is receiving cash. Hence German money is over- 
plentiful in Constantinople and cheap. 

The same is true of Austria. There is a brisk money 
market here, and a good deal of gambling goes on in 

309 



INSIDE THE GERMAN EMPIRE 

foreign exchange, even in francs and Russian rubles. 

As to general conditions of the people. In Pera, 
the foreign quarter, where the rich people live, things 
are not so bad as they may become. One sees plenty 
of beggars about, half-starved children and sickly 
babies. The beggars are very persistent and versatile. 
They will talk to 3'ou in any language without difficulty. 
In Constantinople even the babies learn to lisp in three 
or four languages. 

Over in Stamboul the misery of the poor is said to be 
intense. The Jews, for instance, claim that over 
twenty thousand of their race are facing starvation. 
The Government has opened soup kitchens to relieve 
the pinch. Here the people are used to starving to 
death. They bear it patiently as one of their prerog- 
atives of long standing. 

Turkish politics are rather obscure at present. 
Only general rumors are afloat. Turkey would like a 
ticket to America, but what has she got to pay the fare 
with.P Anything adequate would leave her nothing 
with which to continue business. That is the secret 
of Germany's hold on the country. Not that the Turks 
love the Germans. They can be heard damning them 
heartily even in the street-cars. After the war, if 
Turkey pulls through, the Turks will want to borrow 
money to avoid foreclosure of the Teutonic mortgage. 
That is America's strong hold on Turkey at present 
and a way she can enforce mercy and humanity in the 

310 



TURKEY AND THE BALKAN CALDRON 

treatment of the subject races. The Turks look to 
America as their post-war broker. 

The governing triumvirate, as all the world knows, 
consists of Enver, Talaat, and Djemal. Djemal got 
Syria as his slice of empire. Enver and Talaat share 
the Government on the Bosphorus. There is not al- 
ways, so rumor says, entire harmony between the two. 
Some day, they say, "something" may happen to En- 
ver. 

There is a big peace party. In Asia, at Sivas, there 
is rumored to have been a revolt of the troops. All 
these are unconfirmed reports circulating in the cafes. 
In the meantime there is absolute tranquillity. And 
Constantinople is probably the safest city in the world 
in which to walk about at night. The Turkish police- 
man has no scruple about using his club on very slight 
provocation. And Turkish prisons are extremely un- 
pleasant places to live in indefinitely until it suits the 
Turkish courts to take up one's case. 

The German soldiers and sailors in Constantinople 
deserve a whole column to themselves. The worst thing 
about them is that they have brought their love of 
music and sentimentality with them. It oozes out at 
you from all the little cafes and beer saloons in Pera. 
It is most distressing until one gets used to it. 

Yesterday the new American ambassador [A. I. 
Elkus of New York] was presented to the sultan. It 
was raining, and the sultan's master of the palace was 

311 



INSIDE THE GERMAN EMPIRE 

worried because, hoping the weather would stay clear, 
he had put out the best Kermanshah double-ply rug for 
the ambassador to walk on up the driveway to Dolma- 
bagche Palace. They came for his Excellency with a 
gilded coach and outriders, and rear riders in tre- 
mendous festoons of gilt, like the angels on an opera- 
box in the horseshoe. The embassy staff followed in 
diminishingly less gorgeous vehicles, in strict order of 
precedence. 

A guard of honor turned out to receive his Excel- 
lency. The band played the "Star-Spangled Banner." 
Then followed the reception by the sultan, presentation 
of credentials, speech by his Excellency, and a return 
speech by his Majesty. Then introduction of the staff. 
After that coffee (in diamond-studded cups) and ciga- 
rettes of wonderful flavor. Then light conversation 
with Turkish officials for a few moments, and then 
return, in same order as coming, to the accompaniment 
of the strains of the "Star-Spangled Banner." 

Later a reception was given by the American colony 
to the ambassador at Robert College, away up in Bebek, 
on the hilltop overlooking the green sweep of the Bos- 
phorus and old Mahmoud the Conqueror's ruined tow- 
ers, where in 1445 he began operations against Con- 
stantinople. He was called "Fathi," the conqueror. 
It is his unique title. Since then the victors have been 
called Ghazi. The present sultan wears the title Ghazi. 
On this gorgeous, wind-swept hilltop the American 
colony welcomed Mr. Elkus. You might have imagined 



TURKEY AND THE BALKAN CALDRON 

you were at a faculty tea at Harvard. There was n't 
a Turkish face in the big hall. And the band played 
the latest dances for the young people to dance to. 
They talk of the English taking England with them 
wherever they go. At that they can't beat our Amer- 
icans. And where Americans go they carry their 
speeches with them, in their hip pockets, handy for use 
in case of emergency. So there were speeches of wel- 
come. The ambassador did his share. He has the 
knack of getting a laugh one minute and touching the 
deeper chords the next. After all, they were all Amer- 
icans, islanded in a stormy sea, with their women and 
children, who, in true American style, came right along 
into the front parlor, and it was good to feel that there 
was a strong man at the helm in case of trouble. His 
Excellency decidedly gave the American colony this 
impression — of safety in a crisis. 

The German ambassador. Count von Metternich, has 
left for Germany. "They say" (that's the nearest 
you ever get to the real truth) that he has been re- 
called. Perhaps his recall means a change here in the 
attitude toward Germany. Certainly he would not 
be recalled (that is, if he has been recalled) if things 
were sailing along very smoothly for the Germans. 
Everybody here is ready to jump at the most extrava- 
gant conclusions, because the atmosphere is tense. One 
has the feeling of sitting on the lid of a pot which con- 
tains an unknown quantity. 

313 



INSIDE THE GERMAN EMPIRE 

The simmering pot my correspondent figura- 
tively describes is big enough to hold more than 
Turkey alone : it holds the Balkans and perhaps 
Austria, too. 



314* 



CHAPTER XXII 

THE NEUTRALS AND HOW AMERICA MAKES THEM 
POSSIBLE 

Neutrals "damned if they do and damned if they don.'t" — Germans 
believe that were it not for American neutrality that of the 
smaller nations would have become impossible — Greece starved 
into submission by the Allies — The countries at war, in war, 
and neutral — Sweden the only pro-German neutral — Change in 
Dutch sentiment — Spanish feeling mixed — Swiss think first of 
their own country — Neutrals resent illegal blockade and mail 
seizures and believe the United States could stop them — Nor- 
way may enter the war — Neutral sympathy with the Allies a 
blow to German vanity — How Britain regulates neutral trade, 
and how Sweden defied her — Neutrals warm friends of peace. 

The lot of the neutrals in the Great War is 
not a happy one. They are "damned if they do 
and damned if they don't," and America, because 
she is the most imj)ortant, is damned most of all, 
particularly in Germany. 

But deep in the mind of every thinking Ger- 
man, behind the resentment he feels against his 
country, is a recognition of the fact that only 
through America's neutrality has it been possible 
for the other European neutrals to stay out of the 
conflict. And that means to stay away from the 

315 



INSIDE THE GERMAN EMPIRE 

ranks of Germany's enemies; for with one pos- 
sible exception — Sweden — all the European neu- 
trals, had they entered the war, would have been 
forced by circumstances to come in on the side 
of the Allies. 

The conviction that America's departure from 
neutrality would have had an enormous effect 
upon the attitude of the other neutral nations 
formed an important factor in Germany's deci- 
sion to accept the American doctrine on U-boat 
warfare. The hazard to the empire lying in a 
break with the United States was pointed out by 
Bethmann-Hollweg in a speech he made to a 
closed session of the Reichstag, when he said : 

"The overwhelming majority of expert opinion 
regards a rupture of relations with America as a 
grave peril. ... It is folly to underestimate the 
consequences of a conflict with America. . . . 
Our information leads us to believe that other 
neutrals might follow America's lead. The im- 
perial Government has weighed every factor and 
is convinced of the necessity of avoiding a breach 
with America." 

This same conclusion was expressed by Zim- 
mermann when he said: 

316 



THE NEUTRALS 

"Apart from the nature of American neutral- 
ity, aside from whether it be good or bad so far 
as Germany is concerned (and I think it is unfair 
to us) , the truth remains that the fact that Amer- 
ica has preserved neutrahty has made it possible 
for other nations to remain out of the war, and 
that means out of war against us." 

One of the ministers of state in Denmark told 
me, when I was in Copenhagen, that so far as 
that little kingdom was concerned, her neutrality 
would have long since been made impossible 
through pressure of the Allies had not America 
stood out. 

There is another reason for this besides the 
moral influence. It is a physical one. America 
is supplying the necessities of life to the Euro- 
pean neutrals, and if America entered the war, 
their supplies would at once be cut off, or so 
sharply restricted that their existence would be 
seriously threatened unless they also entered the 
war. 

This rule that American neutrality preserves 
that of other nations is not absolute. If it were, 
Greece would not be occupying the pitiable posi- 
tion in which she lies to-day. But Greece was 

817 



INSIDE THE GERMAN EMPIRE 

in the danger-zone, and by the law of military 
necessity, under which Germany says she ope- 
rated in the invasion of Belgimn, her soil has 
become a battle-ground. The Allies forced this 
condition upon Greece through the employment 
of a method that others of the European neutrals 
fear may be used against them. Her supplies 
were cut off and, threatened with starvation, she 
was forced to succumb to the will of the Entente. 
It is true that there has been no formal declara- 
tion of war by Greece against the central powers, 
but the "benevolent neutrality" she has been 
forced to maintain toward the Allies is much the 
same as that of Luxemburg, which, seized by Ger- 
many at the outbreak of the war, has been used 
ever since as a base of operations against the 
Kaiser's enemies. 

There are twenty-six countries in Europe, and 
of these fifteen are at war, four are in war, and 
seven still maintain their neutrality. Those 
European nations that have actually entered the 
conflict are Great Britain, France, Russia, Italy, 
Belgium, Serbia, IMontenegro, Roumania, Portu- 
gal, San Marino, and Monaco; and opposed to 
these, Germany, Austria-Hungary, Bulgaria, 

318 



THE NEUTRALS 

and Turkey. The four nations in war although 
most unwilling participants are Greece, Luxem- 
burg, Albania, and the little principality of 
Liechtenstein, which is affiliated with Austria. 
The neutrals are Sweden, Norway, Denmark, 
Holland, Switzerland, Spain, and Andorra, the 
tiny republic lying in the Pyrenees between 
France and Spain. 

Of the neutrals Sweden is the only one that 
is forthright in its support of the German cause. 
Perhaps this sympathetic inclination is due less 
to love of the Germans than to fear of the Rus- 
sians. Norway, officially and popularly, stands 
opposed to the central powers, and one need be 
but a few minutes in Denmark to discover the 
sentiment of that country to be identical with 
that in Norway. Denmark has not forgotten 
Schleswig-Holstein or the severity of treatment 
meted out to the Danes who remained in the 
lands absorbed by Prussia in 1864. 

Holland is preserving a strict neutrality that 
is rigorously maintained by the Government, 
which has avoided any display of partiality. But 
the popular voice of the Dutch is all for the Allies 
and all against Germany. There is a curious 

319 



INSIDE THE GERMAN EMPIRE 

psychology behind this fact, since from the days 
of De Ruyter and Tromp the Hollanders have 
been taught to regard Great Britain as their 
hereditary enemy, for it was Great Britain which 
ended the dream of Holland world power, one 
step having been the seizm-e of New Anisterdam 
by the English, who made it New York. But 
with the close communication that has been main- 
tained for years across the channel and with the 
historical affiliations, the feeling of enmity died 
out, and as against the old hostility toward Great 
Britain, there sprang up a deep fear of Germany, 
whose desire for the mouth of the Rhine was not 
calculated to reassure the smaller nation. The 
overrunning of Belgium gave this fear point and 
immediacy. 

Spain is regarded by the northern European 
neutrals as having a leaning toward Germany. 
This is ascribed in part to the fact that the reign- 
ing house is related to the Hapsburg family of 
Austria and to the fact that Spain remembers the 
sympathy and support Germany gave her in the 
war with America in 1898 when England alined 
herself in spirit with the Yankees. But Span- 
iards in a position to speak with authority say 

820 



THE NEUTRALS 

that among the people of Spain there is to be 
found much anti-German sentiment, induced by 
the kinship they feel toward the Romance na- 
tions, France and Italy, alined against the Teu- 
tons. 

Little Switzerland has had the hardest road to 
travel of all the European neutrals. She is com- 
posed of German, French, and Italian regions, 
and the outbreak of the war found the republic 
in a political vortex from which she was pulled by 
the prompt mobilization of her troops. As her 
army includes virtually all of her citizenship, 
military duties took the place of scheming and 
plotting, and now every Swiss thinks first of his 
own country before he considers the claims of the 
belligerents, whether he speaks German, French, 
or Italian. 

Switzerland is participating largely in work 
tending to ameliorate the conditions of the war- 
ring nations by housing the International Red 
Cross headquarters and by offering an asylum 
for prisoners of war. Through these measures 
she has been afforded an outlet of a truly neutral 
nature, for her activities and the national mind 
have been taken off more dangerous subjects. 

321 



INSIDE THE GERMAN EMPIRE 

In common with America, all the neutral na- 
tions, despite the hardships caused by the rising 
prices, have made money, although this war-bred 
prosperity has not been widely or evenly distrib- 
uted. Each of them has its coterie of Goulash- 
Baronen — the title that the Germans give war- 
stuff purveyors, which is used generally through- 
out the neutral nations of Europe. 

But the money has not blinded them to the 
existence of certain conditions which they bitterly 
resent, and the correction of which they believe 
lies in America's hands. 

The Allies' sea blockade, which all denoimce as 
illegal, and the black-list are two of these points ; 
but the most important is the matter of the mails. 
They ascribe the failure to stop Great Britain 
from seizing the neutral posts to American lax- 
ity, and they believe that a sharper attitude on 
the part of the United States would have brought 
about a cessation of this practice. It is of course 
well known that Great Britain has seized all 
mails traveling to and from America, and the 
arguments with which she justifies this opera- 
tion have been repeatedly set forth. But it is 
not so generally known that she has gone so far 

323 



THE NEUTRALS 

as to seize all the mail between Denmark and the 
remote little Danish colony of Iceland. Against 
this higJi-handed proceeding Denmark has pro- 
tested times without number, but always unavail- 
ingly, and now she awaits final action on the 
long-protracted correspondence between this 
country and the Allies. 

By way of contrast, Germany has assumed a 
conciliatory attitude toward Switzerland, and 
Swiss mail traveling through the empire is per- 
mitted to go by untouched and uncensored. On 
the other hand, Swiss mail going through France 
en route to America or elsewhere is held up and 
examined. This stroke has won Germany 
friends in the mountain republic. 

While Germany's relations with Switzerland 
have become more friendly as the war progressed, 
the reverse is true with regard to Norway, and 
the belief is general in that country that sooner 
or later she will have to take up arms against the 
Kaiser ; and where the' thought is strong the act 
usually follows. 

Each of the neutrals has its secret fear and its 
private hope, which wax and wane with the rise 
and fall of the tide of war. But less cynically 

323 



INSIDE THE GERMAN EMPIRE 

frank than Italy and some of the Balkan nations, 
which began the war as neutrals, they do not 
place a price upon their participation, but instead 
seek to suppress their selfish motives and aim at 
peace with honor. 

It is a blow to German vanity to realize that in 
addition to the number of those in arms against 
her, the majority of the neutrals also oppose her, 
if not physically, then spiritually. 

"What is the matter with the rest of the world 
that it should be against Germany?" a well- 
known official of the empire asked. 

"Why not ask what is the matter with Ger- 
many? Perhaps the fault is with her," was the 
answer, and then to give point to the reply the 
German was told the story, long current in 
America, of the fond parents who saw their 
soldier son go marching by with his company, 
and as he passed exclaimed: "Look at them — 
every one out of step excepting Mike!" Even 
the stanch Germanism of the hearer was not 
enough to keep him from admitting the point of 
the anecdote. 

But this readiness to admit the possibility that 
they are themselves at fault is by no means char- 



THE NEUTRALS 

acteristic of all the Germans, and least of all of 
the Junkers, whose creed may be roughly formu- 
lated as. Whatever is German is right. To such 
the defection of some of the former neutrals and 
the disaffection among the countries still preserv- 
ing neutrality are inexplicable, and they place 
the burden of responsibilitj?^ elsewhere. Count 
Reventlow, one of the spokesmen of this group, 
whose intelligence is such as to cause one to doubt 
that he actually believes all he wi'ites, asks the , 
question in his paper, the "Deutsche Tages- 
zeitung" (not to be confused with the "Tage- 
blat," a high-principled, well-balanced Liberal 
journal, in contradistinction to the fire-eating, 
militaristic, aristocratic "Tageszeitung") : 

"What is it that induces neutrals to espouse, 
spiritually or physically, the losing side of the 
Entente rather than the flourishing cause of the 
central powers?" Answering himself, he writes, 
''Obviously because of the fact that the Entente 
powers all bully neutrals to support them, where- 
as Germany is scrupulously satisfied with their 
neutrality." He points out the cases of Den- 
mark, Norway, Holland, and Sweden, and adds : 
"These powers are neutral and have de facto re- 

325 



INSIDE THE GERMAN EMPIRE 

mained really neutral. But the reality of their 
neutrality vanishes more and more, the more 
completely they fall into an absolute dependency 
upon our enemies. The German Emj)ire has 
never demanded that these powers should aban- 
don their neutrality. It has surpassed itself in 
considerateness. It has never acted offensively. 
It has never delivered an ultimatum. But no- 
body can conceal the fact that the above-men- 
tioned neutral powers, the longer the war lasts, 
enter more and more into dependence upon our 
enemies, and look to them to secure their future 
and their interests. They surrender to the pres- 
sure put upon them in various ways." 

The pressure that Germany refers to as being 
used to force the neutrals into line is in connec- 
tion with the sharp restrictions of supplies that 
Great Britain has imposed upon all of the Euro- 
pean nations still at peace. They have been vir- 
tually put upon a ration basis, and no more food 
or other raw or finished commodities are permit- 
ted to enter the various countries than are actu- 
ally to be consumed by them, after allowance has 
been made for their own native stock. This is 
in pm'suance of the policy of economic starvation 

S26 



THE NEUTRALS 

of Germany that England is seeking to put into 
execution through her blockade. Through this 
plan the Allies hope to be able to cut off every; 
source of external supply to the central empires. 

To conform to the regulations and to give offi- 
cial assurance to the Allies that shipments passed 
through the blockade would be employed only 
for the given purposes, the various neutrals have 
created governmental bodies similar in their op- 
eration to the Netherlands Overseas Trust (the 
N. O. T. ) , through which organizations each pri- 
vate shipper, whether importer or exporter, must 
operate. All imports are bulked, and after 
reaching the country are officially distributed; 
but despite these precautions, which are taken 
only to satisfy the demands of the British, there 
still continues an enormous illicit trade with Ger- 
many from Norway, Denmark, Holland, and 
Switzerland. 

Sweden has always denied the Allies' right to 
impose conditions upon her, and accordingly 
much of her import business has been destroyed; 
but she is still able to sell huge quantities of goods 
to the central empires at high prices. For the 
purpose of discouraging the violation of the em- 

327 



INSIDE THE GERMAN EMPIRE 

bargo, Denmark and Norway have imposed, in 
addition to fines, prison penalties upon offenders 
who have trafficked with Germany in forbidden 
articles; but even the fear of jail has not been 
enough to prevent a big business being done with 
Germany, whose need makes her indifferent to 
the prices she must pay. 

Sweden's defiance of England caused a royal 
proclamation to be issued prohibiting export to 
the Scandinavian country of virtually all com- 
modities, primarily all food-stuffs, metals, and 
all textile manufactures. 

Great Britain has insisted upon the right of 
compelling all shippers to produce evidence that 
the goods were actually for neutral consignees, 
whose names and addresses must be given. The 
Swedish kingdom operated under this provision 
through a war trade department which gave offi- 
cial assurance that the goods would reach no 
other destination than that given; but in the sum- 
mer of 1916 it found the regulation had become 
intolerable. The Swedish Parliament passed a 
law making it illegal for Swedish importers to 
supply the British customs with information as 
to the disposal of goods. It was asserted that 

328 



THE NEUTRALS 

the British demand violated Swedish sovereignty. 
Great Britain's answer to this challenge of her 
power was to prohibit all exports to Sweden 
through the United Kingdom. Since every ship 
en route to Sweden is compelled to touch at Brit- 
ish ports, the effect of this embargo was virtually 
to cut off Sweden from the rest of the world. 

Nowhere has peace warmer friends than in 
the European neutrals. Nowhere is the coming 
of peace more earnestly sought than by these na- 
tions which lie on the brink of the red volcano 
whose streams of blood and ashes threaten con- 
stantly to engulf them. 



S29 



CHAPTER XXIII 

LEAVES FROM A REPORTER'S NOTE-BOOK 

Young men all at war — The pathetic cab-horses — Electrified taxis 
— Laughless Germany — Watery beer — The Germans have an 
"Ersatz" for everything but men — Pleasures taken seriously — 
Dancing verboten — Economy in uniforms — ^iVIeat "speak-easies" 
— "Horse mackerel" in disguise — All dogs at work — Potatoes 
on the corner-lot — Crossing the North Sea — Weighting flour 
tickets — Changes in newspapers — Housewives instructed when 
to put up preserves — Saving rags and old paper — Restrictions 
on communication — Women school-teachers — "Vienna styles" 
made in Paris — 'Selling war helmets — Protective coloration in 
uniforms — Interned civilians — Commandeering the rubbish 
stock — /Which boys can ride bicycles — American shells — Ger- 
many's big men and how she regards them. 

Here are briefs random notes of scattered facts 
and fugitive impressions picked up in tJie Ger- 
man Empire. They are verbal snapshots of men 
and things as they are to-day in that embattled 
land, set down as lifted from my reporter's note- 
book with no effort at coherence or climax. 

One of the most striking reactions one under- 
goes in Germany, is made by the nearly total 
absence of young men from its streets and fields. 

330 



A REPORTER'S NOTE-BOOK 

The youth of the country are all at war ; only the 
" Zurilchgestellte" remain, and they, for the most 
part, are those physically incapacitated for mili- 
tary service. 

* * * * 

The cab and delivery horses are one of the 
most pathetic sights to be seen in the cities of 
Germany to-day. They are the off scouring and 
refuse of all horsedom — poor, thin, dispirited, 
emaciated, hobby-horses that can scarcely hft the 
weight of their own heads, which usually droop 
in close proximity to the streets as if looking for 
grain they never get. 

* * * * 

Fodder is a scarce commodity in Germany to- 
day because much of it that formerly went to 
horse and cattle feeding is now being employed 
for human consumption. 

* * * * 

Almost all the horses left in the cities are white 
or flea-bitten gray. All the other colors are used 
for army work. The whites are not — their color 
is too conspicuous. But the demand for horses 
has been so great that even the whites are used 

331 



INSIDE THE GERMAN EMPIRE 

when they are young, being painted dark. The 
horses left for civilian purposes are the old ones. 
Most of those you find attached to the ancient 
droschkes on Unter den Linden in Berlin look 
as if they were cousins to the Eohippus that Noah 
took with him in the Ark. 

* * * * 

The age of the drivers corresponds to the an- 
tiquity of their steeds. Most of them are old 
graybeards, but, by way of paradox, their girths 
are as great as those of their horses are small. 

* * * * 

In the picture with the horses belong the taxi- 
cabs that Berlin and the other German cities are 
using. They are old ramshackle affairs that 
wheeze and groan and threaten to burst apart at 
the first unkind word. All the good cabs, in 
common with all the good private automobiles, 
have been coromandeered for military purposes. 
It is plain to see the reasons for not commandeer- 
ing those which are running on the streets. 

* * * * 

Four-fifths of the taxis are electrified, which 
enables them to proceed at a slow, dignified pace 

332 



A REPORTER'S NOTE-BOOK 

for short stretches. The few internal combus- 
tion motors left use benzol instead of gasoline, 
which is restricted to official needs — military, in- 
dustrial, and those of the high personages. Ben- 
zol is a coal-tar product first developed in Ger- 
many, which Edison was the first to make in this 

country. 

* * * » 

Almost all the machines left in Germany use 
solid tires of composite rubber, but these are now 
rapidly disappearing and in their place are the 
old-fashioned steel tires and the new patent 
spring wheels which consist of one wheel within 
another, the rims separated by springs. The 
manufacturers call them "springs," but the pas- 
sengers using them call them by another name, 
especially when they strike a "thank-you-ma'am" 

or a car track. 

* » ♦ * 

All taxicab and cab rates have been increased 
50 per cent., with thirty pfennigs (nominally 7/4 
cents) added as an extra fee. 

» * * * 

The chauffeurs and cabbies are the most inde- 
pendent lot in all Germany. You have literally 

333 



INSIDE THE GERMAN EMPIRE 

to beg them to accept you as a fare, and the beg- 
ging is all in vain if you have to travel any con- 
siderable distance. They prefer the short hauls, 
which give them the greatest number of extra 

fees. 

* * * * 

It is a rare thing to hear a laugh in Germany 
to-day, and I visited many theaters without hear- 
ing any applause. Night life has disappeared. 
The supper restaurants are morgue-like in their 
lack of cheer, and none serves more than two or 
three parties at a tiine. 

* * * * 

The beer restaurants do better. It is an insult 
to Gambrinus to call the liquor that they serve 
in German}^ "beer." It is really a pale, weak, 
emaciated, watery substance that has much the 
same resemblance to actual beer that water has 

when drunk from a recently emptied beer glass. 

* * * * 

This is due to the heavy reduction in grain 
allowances made to the breweries, but with the 
chemical readiness the Germans are showing they 
at once invented some form of "Ersatz," which, 
translated, means a substitute. In Germany to- 

334 



A REPORTER'S NOTE-BOOK 

day they have an "Ersatz" for ahnost everything 

— except men. 

* * * * 

They have substitutes for coffee, sugar, beer, 
milk, butter, eggs used for cooking and condi- 
ments, and they believe they are well on their 
way to have a perfect substitute for rubber. 

* * * 4f- 

The night hfe of Berlin — that once burned so 
fiercely bright as to make it the talk of the world, 
not for its gaiety, but for its lavishness; not for 
its spontaneity, but for its forcedness — has been 
entirely wiped out. The street women are still 
there but in heavily reduced numbers. They 
have been put to work. 

* * * « 

Such life as is still to be found is grim and 
lacking in merriment. It is a rare thing for 
music to be found in restaurants. 

* * * * 

Theaters are open, but the Germans take their 
pleasures seriously. They go to a comedy as 
they would to an execution. It is the duty they 
feel to obtain recreation. 

335 



INSIDE THE GERMAN EMPIRE 

A man or woman wearing evening clothes in 
any of the German cities is a rare object and one 
of suspicion. It is considered an evidence of 
gaiety, and gaiety is tabooed. The women all 
wear dark clothes, and their evening frocks are 
rarely more than slightly decollete. 



Dancing is an unheard of pastime in Germany. 
It is actually forbidden, both in public and in 
private, and the Germans, who are always good 
citizens, never break the rule, even in the privacy 

of their homes. 

* * * * 

There are fewer soldiers to be seen on the 
streets than one would expect. This is due to 
the fact that most of the military are in the field. 
Those you do see in the city are for the most part 
convalescents, and seven out of every ten show 

wounds. 

* * * * 

The uniforms of the German soldiers, once a 
subject to boast for their neatness and standard- 
ization, are now a pretty sorry exhibition. Wool 
is scarce, so all sorts of cotton combinations are 

336 



A REPORTER'S NOTE-BOOK 

used. Corduroys and jeans in varied colors are 

being made up for army use. 

* * ♦ * 

To save cloth the coats of both officers and men 
are cut almost waist high, and as all the coats 
are made with little tails behind, the effect is 

rather striking. 

* * » * 

It is an uncommon thing to see a soldier who 
has not one or more service decorations. There 
are probably 400,000 Iron Crosses, second class, 
worn in Germany to-day — in fact the enormous 
demand has caused the silver with which the 

crosses are rimmed to go sky high in price. 

* * * * 

In spite of the heavy losses, there is but little 
mourning to be seen on the streets. In my visit 
to France and Belgium, I saw more mom-ning 
being worn by the women in a week than I saw 
in Germany in two months. The absence of the 
death symbols is due to the wish of the Kaiser 

expressed at the beginning of the war. 

* * * * 

One of the curious things to be met with in 

Berlin and some of the other large cities are 

337 



INSIDE THE GERMAN EMPIRE 

"speak-easies" where you can get meat on meat- 
less days. It is almost as bad getting into them 
as trying to get into a "blind-tiger" to get a drink 
in Philadelphia on Sunday. 



Meat is permitted on only five days in the week 
in Germany, and for only one meal on each of 
these days. The "speak-easies" will sell you meat 
with your meals at any time. They are given 
some fancy name to mislead the police in case of a 
raid. The names mislead the diners too, though 
perhaps that is just as well because it is to be 
feared that if the diners knew what they were 
really eating, they would not eat. 
* * * * 

Fish is the great staple of the German diet to- 
day, and of the fish the king is the tuna. 



I had tuna fish disguised as roast beef. Ham- 
burger steak, veal chops, filets and all sorts of 
other meats, and it was prepared with such skill 
and concealed with such ingenious sauces that I 
had difficulty in recognizing it as "horse mack- 

338 



A REPORTER'S NOTE-BOOK 

erel." It took the Germans to discover the real 
value of the tuna, and that is one war article that 
will remain upon their menus in the days to 

come. 

* * * * 

The most delicate gifts one can make to one's 
friends in Germany to-day consist of meat, but- 
ter, eggs, and soap. To give up any of these 
things is like submitting to blood transfusion. 
On October 1 the empire went on a one-egg-a- 
week-per-person basis. ' This was to allow for 
the feminine vagaries of the hens and was figured 
out as the irreducible minimum of the egg pro- 
duction per week. The actual supply is really 
eight or ten times as large as the allowance, but 
with true German precaution the Food Dicta- 
torship is safeguarding the supply in the event 
that the hens go on an egg strike. 

* * * * 

Most of the dogs that one sees in Germany 
to-day are being put to work. The army uses 
a large quantity of them for Red Cross purposes 
and the others to be found in the cities and towns 
are used in place of horses to help the men and 

339 



INSIDE THE GERMAN EMPIRE 

women pull carts. Far more dogs are so used 
than was formerly the case. 



You never see powdered or lump sugar m 
Berlin to-day. When your coffee is brought you 
make a careful search of the salver, and you are 
finally rewarded by the discovery of two tiny 
particles that look like bits of white chalk. This 
is saccharin and is a powerful sweetener. 



In Berlin and the other cities the newly re- 
cruited troops are usually sent to the front at 
night. There is an absence of that "pomp and 
circumstance" of war that marked the departure 
of the soldiers at the beginning. Now the easi- 
est way is considered the best, and so they are 
taken out quietly after nightfall. 



Many Americans who visit Germany outdo 
their German hosts in their vituperation of Amer- 
ica. This has been true to such an extent that 
the average German now sizes up an American 
visitor as either pro-German or pro- Ally, never 

340 



A REPORTER'S NOTE-BOOK 

considering that he might be merely pro- Ameri- 
can. 

* * * * 

There is much more work than there are work- 
ers in Germany, and as a result labor is well paid. 
Therefore the working class is able to supply it- 
self properly. 

■x- * * * 

Everywhere in Germany, in the big or little 
cities, every available corner of ground is utilized 
to grow something. Usually it is potatoes, 
which is the greatest staple of Germany, and 
which enters very largely into the composition of 
their "Kriegshrot" (war-bread). 

* * * * 

Crossing the North Sea from Kirkwall to the 
Norwegian coast gives one a rather crawly feel- 
ing. It is in the very midst of the danger zone. 
The lifeboats are all stripped and swung out- 
board, life preservers distributed, search-lights 
turned on, flags which are kept flying at stern 
and mainmast, and high-powered incandescents 
switched on the ship's sides where in big letters 
the name and nationality of the vessel are dis- 
played. 

341 



INSIDE THE GERMAN EMPIRE 

In spite of the leather shortage, the German 
soldier still clings to his boots. The bulk of the 
German soldiery is recruited from the agricul- 
tural class, which has been accustomed to boots 
and does not willingly use other footwear. 



The German newspapers in the last two years 
have changed their methods in some respects, bas- 
ing the changes on what they have learned from 
the American correspondents who have visited 
Germany. Feature interviews with important 
persons, which at first were a monopoly of the 
Americans, are now being used regularly by the 
bigger German papers, especially in Berlin. 
* * » * 

The ingenuity of the German industrialist is 
not confined exclusively to benefiting the popu- 
lace. Sometimes he seeks to benefit himself. 
For example: The wholesale bakers must turn 
in a certain quantity of tickets for a given quan- 
tity of flour. The tickets are made out in small 
units, so a big number of the pasteboard pieces 
are required for each flour requisition. To save 
time the German officials originated a system of 

342 




GENERAL VUN FALKENIIAYN 



A REPORTER'S NOTE-BOOK 

weighing the tickets. Some clever fellow dis- 
covered that by dampening the tickets he in- 
creased their weight as much as thirty per cent. 
Thereafter ticket dampening was the favorite in- 
door sport of the bakers, until an acute inspector 
discovered the stratagem, and at once an order 
was issued invalidating tickets that were too 

moist. 

* * * * 

Paternalism in government has been worked 
out to such a degree in Germany that even the 
housewives are instructed at what time they can 
put up their preserves, and in what quantities 
and at what prices they may buy their fruits. 

* * * * 

Nothing is permitted to be carried off the bat- 
tle-fields as souvenirs. The debris is carefully 
sorted over, and every article that German in- 
genuity can bring into usefulness again, is sent 
back to the quartermaster's depot. 

* * * * 

Throughout the empire there are collecting 
stations for all sorts of old things — old bottles, 
shoes, pieces of rubber, news and wrapping pa- 

345 



INSIDE THE GERMAN EMPIRE 

per, brass, steel, copper, tin, string, rags, — noth- 
ing is thrown away. Once a month these arti- 
cles are gathered up from every city and village 
and worked over. 



Good candy in Berlin costs three dollars a 
pound. This is because chocolate and sugar are 
so hard to obtain. 



Any one sending a telegram to points within 
or without the empire, or who sends a telegram 
in German or any other language to a foreign 
country, must show a passport if he is a stranger, 
or his official identification card if he be a native. 
This is another ceremonial calculated to restrict 
employment of the wires, thereby reducing labor 
and also minimizing the danger of espionage 
communication. 



Postage rates have been increased throughout 
the empire. Open letters that used to cost 2/4 
pfennigs now cost 5 ; domestic mail that was for- 
merly carried for 5 pfennigs now costs 7/4 pfen- 

346 



A REPORTER'S NOTE-BOOK 

nigs; foreign mail has been raised from 20 to 

25 pfeimigs. 

* * * «• 

On many of the street car lines the rates have 
been increased from 2/4 to 5 pfennigs. Even 
with the increase they are cheaper for short hauls 
than in America. The city of Berlin is proud 
of the record it has made in having contributed 
as a municipahty a total of 170,000,000 marks 
(nominally $42,500,000) for war relief and for 
subscriptions for the war bonds. 

* * * * 

In the schools, which are run full time, there 
are now many more women than men teachers. 
This is a shift from the German scholastic ideal, 
which insisted upon men teachers for the boys. 

* * * * 

Many Germans say that if their Commission- 
ers make a bad peace when the negotiations are 
begun, they would decline to accept the agree- 
ment and go back to war. The sincerity with 
which they say this shows more clearly than their 
words how far they still are from any idea of a 
peace at any price. 

S47 



INSIDE THE GERMAN EMPIRE 

The women of Berlin, Munich, Leipzig, Ham- 
burg, and the other big towns may be suffering, 
but they positively decline to undergo the extra 
privations of being deprived of the Paris styles. 
They get the latest models through Berne. The 
couturieres call them "Viennese," but the ladies 
know what they get when they buy them. 
* * * * 

The Germans' steel trench helmet is by general 
consent the best of all. They laughed at the idea 
at first, but now they have taken it up, and they 
have profited by the French and English models 
they have seen. By making them last they are 
enabled to make them the best. They have a 
long curving protector over the neck, and have 
a special forehead vizor which is used by obser- 
vation officers and is proof against rifle balls. 

* 4f- * * 

The first thing the French and English pris- 
oners do is to sell their steel helmets for a mark 
or two apiece to their German captors. They in 
turn sell them as souvenirs, if special permission 
is granted; otherwise they turn them in to the 
*' Sammelstellung" (collection office), where they 

348 



A REPORTER'S NOTE-BOOK 

are given credit for a little more than they pay. 
German prisoners in the hands of the Allies do 
the same. It gives them a little spending money 
until they are sent hack to the regular prison 
camps, where their prisoners' pay begins. 

* «• * * 

Cover! Cover! Cover! That is the rule of 
the war. That is why the gray-green imiforms 
of the German soldiery were selected. It blends 
best with the brown, yellow, and green of the 
fields and forests. Even the wicker cases in 
which the Germans transport their artillery shells 
are painted green. Bomb-proofs are always cov- 
ered with exactly the same foliage as is found 
about the places in which they are built. Trench 
parapets are never left with the fresh earth ex- 
posed to aeroplane scouts, but are carefully 
tamped down with the top soil, and then covered 
with the grasses from the sm-rounding fields. 

* * ♦ * 

The ambassadors and ministers at Berlin rep- 
resenting the neutral nations are granted the 
privilege of importing their own food supplies 
and gasoline for their motors. Some of the pri- 

S49 



INSIDE THE GERMAN EMPIRE 

vate neutrals have asked for and received the 

same privilege. 

» * * * 

Living is best in the smaller cities and the vil- 
lages where no great extremes of wealth and pov- 
erty are to be found, and where much of the food 
supply is home-raised. The hotels are supplied 
with the same foods that private families receive, 
but the prices in the hotels are considerably 
higher than those the private householders pay, 
since the hotel tariffs are not directly controlled 
by the war food bureau. 

* * * » 

Ham and other hog meats are to be had only 
one day a week — on Thursdays. Medicines of 
all sorts are issued by the druggist only on pre- 
scription; the stocks are to be touched only in 
case of necessity. Alcohol and other inflamma- 
ble spirits are to be bought only with special writ- 
ten permission. 

* * ♦ * 

'No liquors of any sort except beer and wine 
are sold after nine o'clock at night. Illumina- 
tion at night is reduced as much as possible. 
This is to save coal and gas. 

350 



A REPORTER'S NOTE-BOOK 

To make the material for shoes more plentiful 
and cheaper, all leather manufactm'es have been 
sharply curtailed. 

* * * * 

Most of the Germans seem quite sure that Italy 
and Roumania were bought by the Allies, and 
they talk of Sonnino of Italy and Bratianu of 
Roumania as they do of Venizelos of Greece, as 
having been bought and paid for by England. 



Reversely those nations and those newspapers 
which have supported Germany's cause are actu- 
ated only — in German eyes — by the highest eth- 
ical motives. 

* * * * 

English and American papers in Germany 
cost, on an average, twenty-five cents apiece. 
Ten-cent American magazines cost fifty and sixty 
cents apiece, and the more expensive periodicals 
a dollar to a dollar and a half. 



By way of proving that England is responsible 
for much of the unnecessary suffering of the war, 

351 



INSIDE THE GERMAN EMPIRE 

the Germans say that she started the system of 
interning German civilians living within her lim- 
its. Thereupon Germany retaliated. There are 
about 26,000 Germans interned in England and 
about 6000 British interned in Germany. Re- 
cently, through Ambassador Gerard, an ex- 
change was effected of all men over 45 years of 
age held in the detention camps. The exchange 
was made regardless of the number, but only on 
the age basis, so Germany recovered about four 
times as many of her subjects as did England. 

* * » * 

Prices in Copenhagen are staggering. This is 
because the Danish supplies have been sharply 
delimited to actual needs. 

» * * * , 

Copenhagen, once among the most brilliantly 
lighted cities of Europe, is now almost as dark 
as London, due to the heavy reduction in coal 
shipments forced by England. 

* * * * 

All bicycle tires have been commandeered in the 
empire, except where it can be proved that bicy- 
cles are necessities. Boys who live more than 

352 



A REPORTER'S NOTE-BOOK 

three kilometers from school are permitted to 
keep their wheels, and those used for delivery 
purposes are left with their tires. The stripped 
wheels are to be refitted later with a rattan tire 
that is now being developed, and which is said 
to have great resiliency and to be "just as good" 

as rubber. 

* * * * 

The old "polizeiUche Reinigung" (police clean- 
up) of English and French words in the German 
language — that ridiculous effort made by Trau- 
gott von Jagow, Police President of Berlin (not 
to be confused with Gottlieb von Jagow, former 
Secretary for Foreign Affairs) — has ended. 
The English names have all been restored to 
shops, hotels, and streets. In fact, one of the 
most conspicuous signs to be seen on the Linden, 
with rather an ironical touch to it, reads, "Short- 
est and cheapest route to London is via Vlissin- 
gen and Dover." Von Jagow has been trans- 
ferred from Berlin to Breslau. 



I was told in Germany, and received plausible 
confirmation of the statement in Denmark and 

853 



INSIDE THE GERMAN EMPIRE 

here in America, that Russia was compelling 
many of her subjects now in this country to re- 
turn for service in the Czar's army by fining and 
imprisoning relatives of those who failed to obey 
the mandate. Information of the danger in 
which they place their relatives by their refusal 
to return is conveyed to the Russians in America 
through the Russian consulates, and it is usually 
effective in forcing them to go back. 



Russian steerage travel between American 
ports and Scandinavia because of this pressure 
has been unusually heavy in the last year. 

* * * ♦ 

By way of showing the manner in which the 
war has broken family ties, the Rothschild family 
has representatives in the armies of five of the 
belligerents — Germany, Austria, France, Eng- 
land, and Belgium. All are first cousins. 



Almost all the big cities of Germany support 
racing meetings twice a week. Betting machines 
are used, and the total of the wagers reaches 

354! 



A REPORTER'S NOTE-BOOK 

astounding figures. Sixteen per cent, is taken 
from the amount bet, 10 per cent, of which goes 
to the state for charitable work and 6 per cent, 
remains for the racing associations. American 
jockeys and trainers are still working in Ger- 
many, although their former popularity has 

waned. 

* * * * 

Chancellor von Bethmann-Hollweg's son was 
killed in the war, and late in 1916 Premier As- 
quith lost his son, too. The Chancellor was deeply 
affected by his son's death. He is a broken man, 
and only the pressure of his duties keeps him 

going. 

* * n- * 

The women conductors of the street cars in 
Berlin are perhaps frail in physique, but what 
they lack in strength to subdue unruly passengers 
they make up in the length of the hat-pins they 
wear through their caps. These pins have proved 
great persuaders — even the most boisterous pas- 
senger succumbs to their thrusts. 

* * * » 

At the front one is told either that every Amer- 
ican shell has killed a battalion or that it is a 

355 



INSIDE THE GERMAN EMPIRE 

"Blind-ginger" (blind goer, i. e., missed fire). 
There are no average shells made in America, it 
seems ; either they commit wholesale murder or 
are utterly worthless. 



Whenever Bethmann-Hollweg appears in pub- 
lic, he wears the uniform of a lieutenant-general. 
Apropos of this, Maximilian Harden, the famous 
journalist of Berlin, said to me: "That is a mis- 
take. He would be far more effective in simple 
civilian attire. We have in our armies many 
generals, but in our nation we have only one 

Chancellor." 

» * * » 

Von Jagow, the former Secretary of Foreign 
Affairs, seemed to lack the confidence of the pub- 
lic. He was looked upon as a relic of the old 
school of German diplomacy, to which the Ger- 
mans attribute a large share of their present mis- 
fortunes. Jagow is of a subtle, casuistic, in- 
direct, Metternich type, and because of the Ger- 
mans' lack of confidence in their diplomatic corps 
this ultra-diplomatic type is no longer popular in 
the empire. On the other hand Zimmermann, 

356 



A REPORTER'S NOTE-BOOK 

who succeeded Jagow, is a man of the people — 
big, broad, simple, direct, forceful and mag- 
netic. 

* * * * 

The attitude of the German people toward the 
big men of the Government is curiously mixed. 
I could not find one single dissonant note in the 
chorus of support, sympathy, admiration, and af- 
fection that the Kaiser's name always calls out. 
The people go wild over Hindenbm'g — he is their 
idol. Mackensen is another who is enshrined. 
Falkenhayn was always rather distrusted. Beth- 
mann-Hollweg is pitied, and his good intentions 
are appreciated, although there is a belief that he 

lacks force. 

* * * » 

Zimmermann will bulk big on the German 
stage when it is re-set by the Liberals who are now 
engaged in a life and death struggle with the 
Conservatives for the fatherland. Count von 
Bernstorff, ambassador at Washington, under 
attack by his personal enemies at the outbreak of 
the war, has now won the approval of his Gov- 
ernment and the people by his work in this 
country. 

357 



INDEX 



Adlon, Hotel: menu of, 167f. 173f. 

Aeroplanes: method of attack by, 
236f. See also Aviation. 

Aggression. See Annexation, Con- 
quest. 

Agrarians: attitude of, toward re- 
form movement, 55. 

Albania, 189. 

Allies : attitude toward Belgian res- 
toration, 5f; defeat as means to 
peace, 7; possible disruption, 9fiE; 
influence of, on German liberal- 
ization, 13f, 43, 49; attitude to- 
ward peace, 20ff; effect on, of 
German censorship, 65f; Alsace- 
Lorraine, 6, 22, 189, 260. 

"American Neutrality" : Grerman 
trench book, 97-108. 

America. See United States. 

American Red Cross Association, in 
Serbia, 297. 

Amusements: in Germany, 334flf. 

Andrassy: Hungarian patriot, 295f. 

"Anzac," 241. 

"Anglo-Amerikanerthum," 13, 93. 

Annexation : attitude toward, of 
Germany, 5f ; relation of, to dura- 
tion of war, 2 Iff. See also Con- 
quest. 

Antwerp, under German rule, 246. 

Apponyi: Hungarian patriot, 295. 

Armenia : assistance to, from United 
States, 107f. 

Artillery: French, 192; use of, in 
war, 194 ; Austrian, 207. 

Asia : as Russian commercial route, 
11, 133; as German commercial 
goal, 25, 133. See also Expan- 
sion. 

Asquith: attitude toward compro- 
mise, 9; loss of son, 355. 

Atrocities : comparison of Belgian, 
with Mexican, lOlf. 

Austria-Hungary: 276-298; relation 
of, to Russo-German union, 10 ; 
attitude toward Italy, 22; weak- 



ness of, in present war, 34 ; re- 
sentment toward United States, 
206. 

Automobiles: in German armies, 
332. 

Aviation corps, courtesy of, 196f. 

Aviators : comparison by Boelcke, of 
French and English, 230. 



Baggage: examination of, in Ger- 
many, 115f. 

Baker : relation of, to families and 
distributing bureaus, 169, 342. 

Balkans : importance of, to Germany, 
25, 34, 60, 130f, 300f; relation 
of, to Russo-German union, lOf. 

Balkanzuff, 277, 304ff. 

Ballin, — , quoted on German 
future, 13f. 

Bapaume: British objective, 200. 

Bassermann, reactionary, attitude 
of, toward peace, 32f ; attitude of, 
toward reform movement, 55 ; at- 
titude of, toward submarine pol- 
icy, 85. 

Batocki: Food Dictator, 159, 165f, 

Belgische Kurier, 258. 

Belgium: annexation of, by Ger- 
many, 5f, 21ff, 33; relation of, 
to peace, 4f, 16 ; attitude toward, 
of United States, 107; under Ger- 
man rule, 242-261 ; effect on, of 
food embargo by Gt. Britain, 249 ; 
industries of, under German oc- 
cupation, 253 ; attitude toward 
Germany, 259. 

Berlin: nervous strain in, 68f; Cen- 
tral Biiro located in, 139; use of 
central kitchens, 176. 

Berliner Tagehlatt: suppression of, 
by censors, 66. 

Bernhardi, 59. 

Bernstorff, Count Johann von : 357 ; 
attitude of, toward reform, 65 ; 
attitude toward diplomatic break, 



359 



INDEX 



87; attitude of, on submarine pol- 
icy, 88. 

Bethmann-HoUweg : attitude toward 
Belgian restoration, 4f; on Ger- 
man objectives in war, 19ff; por- 
trait, 23; quoted, 31, 86; attitude 
toward peace, 32 ; attitude toward 
reform government, 54, 357; rela- 
tion of, to Jzinkerthum, 59 ; op- 
posed to resumption of submarine 
policy, 75, 82 ; attack upon, in 
"Junius Alter," 87; quoted on 
neutrals, 316; loss of son, 355, 
356. 

Bismarck: 42, 50; attitude toward 
Press, 66. 

Bissing, Governor General von, 
quoted on food conditions in Bel- 
gium, 248; portrait, 251; head- 
quarters of, in Brussels, 254. 

Blacklist: as source of German 
hatred of United States, 72. 

Blockade : as cause of German 
hatred of United States, 72, 80. 

Boelcke: German aviator, 226-241; 
portrait, 231. 

Boer republics: war against, by Eng- 
land, 27. 

Bohemia: Panslavism of, 28 If. 

Border patrol: by Germany, 116f. 

Boy-Ed, Captain : attitude of, to- 
ward United States, 204. 

Bratianu, Roumanian premier, 299f. 

Briand: quoted on peace terms, 6, 
9. 

Brockdorff-Rantzau, 55, 77f. 

BrusseUer Tageszeitung, 258. 

Brussels, under German rule, 246. 

Bucharest: German advance upon, 
225. 

Bulatzel, M. : cited on peace, 37. 

Bulgaria: relation of, with Germany, 
63. 

Bureaus, in Germany, to eliminate 
competition, 127; of government, 
for purchasing and distributing, 
138ff. 

Burgfriede: 57. 

Butcher, relation of, to family and 
bureau, 168f. 



Cabinet: organization of, in German 
reform Government, 52. 

Cable: suspension of, between Ger- 
many and United States, 88f ; in- 
terference with, by Allies, 125. 



Cafe Bauer: prices of, 174. 

Calais: retention of, by English, 34f. 

Cambrai: under German rule, 255f. 

Cards: system of, in Germany, 163f. 

Carthage: comparison of, with Ger- 
many, 22. 

Casualties, German, 181. 

Cattle: numbers of, in Prance, Ger- 
many and England, 171. 

Censor in Germany : attitude toward 
union with Russia, 9 ; attitude to- 
ward Japan, 12 ; attitude toward 
peace, 3 If; attitude toward crit- 
icism, 65f; responsibility of, for 
hatred of United States, 92; at- 
titude of, toward Tirpitz mani- 
festo, 93. 

Central Einkauf-BUros, 138. 

Chancellor : responsibility of, to 
Kaiser, 14 ; responsibility of, un- 
der refoim Government, 51. See 
Bethmann-HoUweg. 

Charles Francis Joseph, Emperor of 
Austria, 286. See also Karl I. 

Chivalry: of aviation corps, 227f. 

Clausewitz: cited on militarism, 15, 
59. 

Cologne: use of central kitchens, 
176. 

Cologne "Gazette" : quoted on na- 
tional support of Kaiser, 65. 

Combination : legalization of, by Ger- 
man Government, 127ff. 

Commerce: conflict over, of Germany 
and England, 25f; post-bellum, of 
Germany, ISOf. 

Communications, difficulties of, in 
Germany, 110. See also Posts, 
Railways. 

Competition: necessity of, in Amer- 
ican trade, 127f. 

Compromise: as means to peace, 8f, 
16f, 33. 

Committee for Relief in Belgium, 
246, 266f. 

Conquest: impossibility of world, for 
Germany, 8 ; as motive for Span- 
ish War, 103f; territorial, 180f, 
20ff. 

Conservatives: attitude of, toward 
peace, 32f; toward reform move- 
ment, 55; toward resumption of 
submarine warfare, 82f. 

Conscription, English : effect of, on 
unification, 36, 197. 

Constantinople, lOf, 16, 302. 

Copenhagen: 111, 352. 



360 



INDEX 



Credits: difficulties for Germany, 
137; system in Germany, 141ff. 

Coupette, General, 158. 

Courts: in Belgium and France, 247. 

Currency: in Belgium, 250; in Tur- 
key, 309; in Austria, 309f. 

David: quoted on resumption of sub- 
marine policy, 85. 

Delbrueck, Prof. : referred to, on 
German future, 12f. 

Democracy: German ideal, 156. 

Denmark: on Belgian restoration, 
4; affected by English navy, 26; 
hostility to Germany, 319. 

Dernburg, Dr., 204. 

Diplomacy : comparison of German 
and American, 46. 

Disarmament: antagonism to, in 
Germany, 31. 

Distribution of supplies: effect of, 
on German life, 162ff. 

"Divine right" : agitation vs., in Ger- 
many, 14. See also Zabern doc- 
trine. 

"Dreibund of discontent": its ad- 
vantages, 12f. 

Dress: of German women, 336, 348; 
of soldiers, 337. 

"Dumping" : by Germany, 128f. 

Durchhalten (German motto), 4, 
40f. 

Diisseldorf: 159; use in, of central 
kitchen, 176. 

Dutch: See Holland. 



East Prussia: Russian atrocities in, 
220. 

Efficiency. See Organization, Ger- 
man. 

Egan, Dr. M. E., 77. 

Egj'pt: disaffection in, 35. 

Ehrenvolle Friede, 29f. 

Election: relation of, to submarine 
policy, 95f. 

Emigration : prohibition of, after the 
war. 129, 289. 

England: ojective of, in war, 22, 
26f; naval supremacy, 25f; re- 
tention of Calais, 34f ; attitude to- 
ward, of Germany, 35 ; reputed 
treaty of, with U. S., 71 ; attitude 
of, to protests of United States, 
80; action vs. submarines, 82; 
competition of, with United States, 
89f; mortality, Wenninger quoted 
on, 197; mines used by, at 

361 



Somme, 203; attitude of, toward 
Belgian supplies, 249. 

Essen : use in, of central kitchen, 
176. 

Expansion, commercial: for Ger- 
many, 19fif, 25; direction of, 60. 
See also Balkans, Asia. 

Expenditures, war: relative, of Ger- 
mans and Allies, 143. 

Exports: of United States, to Ger- 
many, 133ff. 

Ersatz (substitutes) : 334f. 

Falbusch: German aviator, 236, 238. 

Falkenhayn, General von, 143, 357; 
portrait, 343. 

Farming: control of, by Govern- 
ment, 169f; in Belgium, by Ger- 
mans, 243. 

Females. See Women. 

Ferdinand I, of Bulgaria: 284f; 
portrait, 305. 

"Flak," German anti-aircraft guns, 
241. 

Fog-bombs: use of, by Germans, at 
Jutland, 205f. 

Fodder: scarcity of, for horses, 331. 

Food: distribution of, in Germany, 
116, 138ff, 164f; von Groner's 
department, 159 ; siipply of, in 
Germany, 162-177; in Belgium, 
247ff; varieties of, in Germany, 
338fif. 

Force. See Militarism. 

France: possession of, by Germany, 
6, 21, 180; attitude of, toward 
peace, 6, 37; and Alsace-Lor- 
raine, 22; effect on government, 
of war, 35 ; attitude toward, of 
Germany, 33, 35 ; under German 
rule, 242-261; industries of, un- 
der German occupation, 253; at- 
titude toward Germany, 259. 

Franco-Prussian War, 49. 

Freytag-Loringhoven, General Baron 
von: quoted on causes of German 
confidence, 180f; quoted on 
Somme situation, 189ff; quoted 
on trench war, 194 ; succeeded by 
Ludendorfif, 210f. 

Fried, Dr. Alfred: 32. 

Frobenius : on militarism, 15, 59. 

Fryatt, Capt., referred to, 239. 



Gaffney, St. John, 75f. 

Galicia: sufferings of, 261-275. 



INDEX 



Gannett, Lewis: English translator 
of Fried, 32. 

Gerard, James W. : portrait, fron 
tispiece; 76, 91f, 94; on resunip 
tion of submarine policy, 74 ; 
quoted on German-Americanism, 
77; Ambassador: work of, for 
British aviators, 239. 

Gherardi: attitude toward, of Ger- 
many, 75. 

Gibraltar: control of, by Gt. Britain, 
lOf. 

Gonverneur Morris, 102f. 

Gottberg, Otto von: author of 
"American Neutrality," quoted, 
97-108. 

Government. See German Govern- 
ment; United States Government. 

Gt. Britain: supremacy of fleet, 8, 
lOf; seizure of neutral mails, 
322f. 

Greece, 26, 63, 301f, 318. 

Griesel, Major: attitude of, toward 
Americans, 78. 

Groner, General von : quoted on new 
war department, 156£f. 

Guttmann, Herbert: attitude toward 
submarine policy, 85. 

Hague Conference, The: abolition of, 
with German peace, 30f ; Germany 
at, attitude on munitions sales, 
79. 

Hamburg-American shipbuilding, 
135. 

Hapsburg, House of, 34, 281, 288f. 

Harden, Maximilian : defense of Wil- 
son by, 96 ; quoted on Bethmann- 
Hollweg, 356. 

Harriman: relation of, with Roose- 
velt, 106. 

Harvesting: German, at firing line, 
199. 

Hausler, Lieut.-Ool., 158. 

Helfferich, Dr. Karl: portrait, 145, 
148, 149; attitude of, toward 
peace, 32 ; toward reform govern- 
ment, 54 : toward submarine pol- 
icy, 82; toward Wilson, 96. 

Hesse, A., 148. 

Hindenburg, General von: 142, 207, 
224f, 226, 357; quoted on Ger- 
man military position, 14 ; action 
of, toward military attaches of 
U. S., 75 ; attitude townrd sub- 
marine policy, 88 ; portrait, 185 ; 
and Ludendorff, 209-225. 



Hogs: relative numbers, in France, 
England and Germany, 171. 

Holieuzollerns : effect on, of liberal- 
ization, 44. 

Holland: on Belgian restoration, 4; 
effect on, of English naval power, 
26 ; attitude toward Germany, 
319f. 

House, Col. E. M. : quoted on Zim- 
mermann, 45. 

Hughes: support of, by Germany, 
94f. 

Hungary: importance of, to Ger- 
many, 34 ; admired by Germany, 
281; commercial future, 292. 
See also Austria-Hungary. 

Immelmann, Lieut., German aviator, 
235f. 

Immigration: into Austria-Hungary, 
290. 

Imperial transmission commission, 
140. 

Imports: of United States, from Ger- 
many, 133ff. 

India: disaffection in, toward Eng- 
land, 35. 

Industi-y: relation of, to National 
Liberal Party, 55 ; increase of 
workers, 150 ; attitude toward of 
Belgians, 244ff; of French, 245ff. 

Internationalism, 29. 

Ireland: disaffection of, 35. 

Iron Man (Hindenburg), 209. 

Isthmus of Suez: controlled by Gt. 
Britain, lOf. 

Italy, 11, 22, 36, 63, 189. 

Jagow, General von: superseded by 
Zimmermann, 43: attitude toward 
reform government, 54f; quoted 
on American neutrality, 73 ; 
quoted on United States' muni- 
tion shipments. 79f; position on 
submarine policy, 82 ; portrait, 
83 ; public opinions of, 356. 

Japan: possible union of. with Ger- 
many, 12; hostility of, to United 
States, 13. 

Jellicoe. 206. 

Jews: effect upon, of German liberal- 
ization, 67; starvation of, in Tur- 
key, 310. 

Jewish relief: work of, in Poland, 
262ff. 

Joffre, General, 105. 



862 



INDEX 



"Junius Alter": anti- American pam- 
phlet, quoted from, 87. 

Junkerthum: 325; attitude toward 
peace, 31; toward Government, 
59 ; toward resumption of sub- 
marine policy, 64. 

Jutland : German attitude toward 
battle of, 205f. 

Kaiser. See Wilhelm I, Wilhelm 
II. 

Karl I, Emperor of Austria, portrait, 
279. 

Karolyi, 295f. 

Kluck, General von, 142. 

Kossuth, Louis, 296. 

Kracke : biographer of Ludendorfif, 
213. 

Kranken-Kassen : in Germany, 149. 

Eriegsbrot, 167, 169, 341. 

Kuhn, Col. : action against, by Ger- 
many, 75. 

Labor : scarcity of, in Germany, 129 ; 
compulsory, 155f; employment of 
women and prisoners, 170f. 

Law, international: effect on, of 
German peace, 30f. 

League of Truth : demonstration by 
against Wilson, 75f. 

Liberalization of German Govern- 
ment, 39-56; as peace factor, 8, 
ISflf, 33ff; value to of German 
unity, 42f; opposition by Con- 
servatives, 46f; effect on, of 
Press, 66f. 

Liebknecht, 29. 

Liege, 218, 246. 

Lille: hatred of Germans, 254ff. 

Liners, transatlantic: German es- 
pionage on, 12 4f. 

Liquids: German confiscation of, 
116. 

Lithuania: sufferings, 261-275. 

Lloyd George: attitude of, toward 
compromise, 9. 

Loans: German, 141ff. 

Lohmann, Alfred: quoted on Ger- 
man future, 12f; quoted on Ger- 
man industry, 129f ; portrait, 131. 

Losses, German, 181, 183f. 

Louvain, 246. 

Ludendorff, Erich von: 75, 206, 
209-225 ; quoted on peace plans, 
212; portrait, 215; attitude to- 
ward submarine policy, 220f. 



Machine guns, in war, 194. 

Mackensen, von, 206, 221, 226, 
357; attitude of, toward subma- 
rine policy, 88; portrait, 201. 

Magnes, Rabbi, 263 ; quoted on 
Polish relief, 264f, 269. 

Mails : interference of, 72 ; transmis- 
sion of, by neutrals, 12 5f. 

Manufacturers : government super- 
intendence of, 139f. See also 
Paternalism. 

Marquardt, Col., 158. 

Mass feeding places, 176. 

Masurian Swamps, battle of, 222f. 

Mediterranean: controlled by Great 
Britain, lOf. 

Mehring, Franz: quoted on peace, 
37. 

Metternieh, 46. 

Militarism: 15; German, vs. English 
"navalism," 25f; wavering of 
German, 59ff. 

Mines: use of, by English, 203. 

Moltke, von, 211, 218. 

Monarchy: return to, by Prance, 35, 
105; as best form of government, 
44, 104f. 

Monroe Doctrine: European atti- 
tude toward, 103. 

Money. See Currency. 

Monopoly : German prevention of, by 
government control, 165. 

Montenegro, 180. 

MuUer: popular hero, 226. 

Munitions : relation of United States 
to supply, 72, 86 ; German manu- 
facture of, by women, 204. 



Nationalism, German: 30, 57-69, 
181. 

National Liberal Party: attitude of, 
toward peace, 32f; attitude to- 
ward reform movement, 55 ; to- 
ward submarine warfare, 82f ; let- 
ter to, from Ludendorff, 221. 

National trade commission: erection 
of, in United States, 127. 

Naumann: quoted on resumption of 
submarine policy, 85. 

"Navalism," Erglish, vs. German 
militarism, 25f. 

Navy: necessity of, for United 
States, 107. 

Netherlands Oversea Trust, 327. 

Neutral nations : attitude of, toward 
Belgian restoration, 5f; effect of, 



863 



INDEX 



on war, 315ff. See also specific 

names. 
Newspapers: in Germany, 66f, 89; 

Bubsidization of, by Germany, 66f. 
New York Times : 67. 
New York Tribune : 67. 
New York World: 67. 
Nietzsche, 59. 
Nobel peace prize: Dr. Fried winner 

of, 32. 
North German Lloyd Company: 

ship-building, 135f. 
North Sea : supremacy on, of Great 

Britain, 8 ; danger in crossing, 

341. 
Norway: Germany questioned by, on 

Belgian restoration, 4 ; effect on, 

of English naval power, 26. 

Occupancy : German : effect of, on 
Belgians, 244ff; effect of, on 
France, 245ff. See also Conquest, 
Annexation. 

Pan-German League : strength of, in 
America, 76ff. 

Panslavism: Bohemian, 281. 

Papen, Captain von, 203f. 

Paris: 179. 

Paris Economic Conference : attitude 
of, toward United States, 90. 

Passport: routine attendant upon 
securing, 109, lllff, 118ff. 

Paternalism : German, 345. See 
German Government. 

Peace: possible alternatives toward, 
3-17 ; attitude toward, of Ger 
many, 3ff, 19, 27f, 29-38, 94 
347; through compromise, 9; at 
titude toward, of Allies, 20 
through German liberalization 
33ff, 49; French attitude toward 
37; effected by Russia, 37; rela 
tion to, of Turkey, 311. 

Peace enforcing leagues: 31. 

Persian Gulf: as Russian harbor, 
11. 

Petrograd: influence in, of Ger- 
many, 11, 34. 

Pigeon-posts: use of, at Somme, 199. 

Poincare, French President, 105. 

Poland: relation of, to peace propo- 
sitions, 16; annexation of, by 
Germany, 21 ; support of, by 
United States, 107f ; campaign in, 
223; sufferings of, 261-275; po- 
litical future of, 265f, 273f. 



Police: departments of, in Germany, 
109-126; use of native, in con- 
quered Belgium and France, 247. 

Political philosophy: of Germany, 
50. 

Polonyi: Hungarian patriot, 295. 

Post : suspension of, between United 
States and Germany, 88f. See 
also Mails. 

Postage: increased rates, 346. 

Pozieres, windmill of, 196. 

President, American: weakness of, 
from German viewpoint, 105f. 

Prices : relative rise in, comparison 
of German, English and French, 
147; government regulation of 
supply and demand, 172ff; in Bel- 
gium, 250; in Austria, 282f; in 
Turkey, 308. 

Prisoners: 181, 184, 187. 

Profit: relation of, to American 
neutrality, 100. 

Prosperity: in United States, as 
source of international resent- 
ment, 72, 

Questionnaire: of German Govern- 
ment, 120. 

Radicals: attitude of, on submarine 
policy, 82. 

Racing: in Germany and Austria, 
144, 

Railways : of Prussian-Hessian 
State, 151; operation of, by Ger- 
mans, 199. See also Balkanzug. 

Rantzau, Count : opinion on subma- 
rine policy, 88. 

Raw Staples: bureaus for, in Ger- 
many, 138ff. 

Red Cross Work: hindrance to, in 
Poland, by Allies, 262; in Serbia, 
297. 

Reichshanlc : 152ff; recall by, of 
German money in Belgium, 258. 

Reichsmarks : fluctuating values of, 
152f. 

Eeicharat: 283. 

Reichstag: 14, 19, 31, 55, 141flf, 
316; changes in, under reform 
government, 44 f, 53. 

Reserves, German, 181. 

Restoration of Europe, The: atti- 
tude of Germany toward, 32. 

Reventlow, Count: quoted on posi- 
tion of neutrals, 325f. 

Robert College, 312. 



364> 



INDEX 



Rockefeller War Relief Commission: 
■work of, in Poland, 262ff; in Ser- 
bia, 297. 

Rothschild family, in war, 354. 

Roediger, Dr. : quoted on subma- 
rine warfare, 8 If. 

Roosevelt, Tlieodore: attitude of, to- 
ward Harriman, 106. 

Eosencrantz, German aviator, 236, 
238. 

Rotterdam: neutral port. 111. 

Roumania, 16, 22, 36, 63, 180, 188, 
296, 299f. 

Russia: relation of, to Germany, 
9flE, 10, 11, 34, 133, 303; future 
trade routes, 11 ; relation of, to 
European Turkey, 22 ; attitude to- 
ward, of German conservatives, 
33 ; German crops destroyed by, 
175; German occupation in, 180; 
fear of, in Poland, 263f; emi- 
grants from, forced to return, 
354. 

Rumania. See Roumania. 

Salmond, Capt. H. C, English avia- 
tor, quoted, 239flf. 

Savings bank deposits: increase of, 
in Germany, 143f. 

Schiedemann, quoted on war policy, 
36, 85. 

Schleswig-Holstein, 319. 

Schools : attendance of, in Belgium 
and France, under German occu- 
pation, 257f. 

Scientists: discoveries by, of food 
substitutes, 163. 

Search: by German officials, 114ff. 

Self-preservation: as German goal in 
war, 19ff, 40f. 

Serbia, 180, 107; relation of, to 
peace propositions, 16, 33. 

Servia. See Serbia. 

Shipping program : of Germany, 135f. 

Siegen: German motto, 40f. 

Smith, Lieut. C, English aviator, 
239. 

Social Democrats: attitude of, to- 
ward peace, 29f, 32 ; support by, 
of Government, 59 ; attitude to- 
rard submarine policy, 82f. 

Socialism: principles of, applied by 
German Government, 68, 144. 

Socialists, German: attitude of, to- 
ward peace, 30. 

Solf , Dr. : attitude of, toward peace, 
32; toward reform government, 



54; toward submarine policy, 82. 

Somme: ordeal by battle, 195-208. 

Sorge, Dr. Karl: 157. 

South Africa: disaffection in, to- 
ward England, 36. 

Spain: attitude on Belgian restora- 
tion, 4 ; as carrier of German 
mail, 125f; attitude toward Ger- 
many, 3 2 Of. 

Spies: preventions against, in Ger- 
many, 109-126; in hotels, 122fif; 
on transatlantic liners, 124f. 

Staples: government limitations of, 
166f. 

Starvation: of neutrals by England, 
26. 

Steinman-Bucher, 148. 

Stengel, Prof, von: quoted on bene- 
fit of German peace, 3 Of. 

Stephen Tisza, Hungarian Prime 
Minister: portrait, 293. 

Stock markets: in Germany and 
Austria, 144f. 

Stockholm: 111; secret conference 
in, of Russia-Germany, 9f. 

Stresemann : attitude of, toward 
peace, 32f; toward reform gov- 
ernment, 55 ; on submarine policy, 
85. 

Submarine warfare : use of, directed 
vs. United States, 13, 74f, 79- 
90, 81f, 94; attitude of Conserva- 
tives, toward resumption of, 33 ; 
advocated by Junkerthum, 64; 
limitation of, by United States, 72. 

Suedekum: quoted on resumption of 
submarine policy, 85. 

Suez, Isthmus of: value of, to Great 
Britain, lOf. 

Suffrage: changes in, under reform, 
50 ; for woman, in liberalized 
Germany, 67f. 

Sweden: Germany questioned by, on 
Belgian restoration, 4 ; effect on, 
of English naval power, 26. 

Switzerland: on Belgian restoration, 
4 ; position of, toward the war, 321. 



Tannenberg, German victory, 222. 

Taxation: power of, by Reichstag, 
55f; increased in Germany; 147. 

Telegrams: restrictions on, in Ger- 
many, 346. 

Tempelhoff, Fraulein von: quoted on 
Ludendorff, 214. 

Thiepval, battle of, 195. 



365 



INDEX 



Time duration, effect of, on Tear, 37f . 

Tirpitz manifesto, 92f. 

Tirpitz: quoted on " Anglo- Ameri- 
kanerthum," 13. 

Tisza, Count, 295. 

Trade routes. See Balkans, Expan- 
sion, Germany, Russia. 

Travel: difficulties of, in Germany, 
109-126 ; between Belgium and 
Germany, 253. 

Treitschke: on militarism, 15, 59. 

Trentino : relation of, to peace prop- 
ositions, 16. 

Trieste: effect on, of peace, 16. 

Trusts: power of, in United States, 
106. 

Tuberculosis: spread of, in Polish 
prisons, 268f. 

Tunnels. See Mines. 

Turkey, European: 299-315; rela- 
tion of, to Russo-German union, 
10, 22, 63. 



U-boat. See Submarine. 

U-53: demonstration by, expected 
by United States embassy, 88. 

United States: on Belgian restora- 
tion, 4 ; on submarine warfare, 
13, 70-78 ; hostility with Japan, 
13 ; effect on, of English naval 
supremacy, 26 ; hatred of, by Ger- 
many, 70-78, 86f; reputed treaty 
with England, 71; use of army 
transports for mails, 80; compe- 
tition of, with England, 89f; de- 
scription of, in German book, 97- 
108 ; competition of, with Ger- 
many, 101; commercial competi- 
tion in, 127f; statistics on trade 
with Germany, 133ff; Govern- 
ment: official protest of, against 
Belgian deportation, 253 i effect of 
neutrality, 315-329. 



Walker, Ronald, English aviator, 239. 

War: prospective conclusion, 3ff; 
German objectives, 18-28 ; Eng- 
lish objective, 26f; effect on, of 
Italy and Roumania, 3(>; effect of 
duration, 37f; present stage of, 
57f; responsibility for, 60ff; re- 
lation to, of diplomatic break be- 
tween Germany and United 
States, 87; relation to, of Ger- 
man manufacturing plants, 14 Of. 



Warburg, Felix: quoted on need of 
Poland, 269f. 

War debts : probability of belligerent 
parties to liquidate, 141. 

Warsaw: retreat of Germans from, 
223. 

War Study Society of Copenhagen, 
187. 

Washington. See United States. 

Weddigen, popular hero, 226. 

Wenniger, von: quoted on Thiepval 
attack, 195; on courtesy of aero- 
plane fliers, 196; quoted on Eng- 
lish mortality, 197. 

Westarp, Count: attitude on sub- 
marine policy, 85. 

Wilhelm 1 : 50 ; quoted on Belgium, 5. 

Wilhelm II. : attitude toward liberal- 
ization, 42 ; German unity under, 
42, 64, 357; portrait, 61. 

Windmill of Pozieres, 196. 

Wilke, Col., 158. 

Wilson, President: resentment of, in 
Germany, 76, 91-96; attitude to- 
ward submarine warfare, 81ff; as 
intermediator for peace, 93f. 

Wilson, Capt., English aviator: cap- 
ture of, by Boelcke, 228f. 

Women : in German trenches, 41 ; 
position of, as result of German 
liberalization, 67f; increase of, 
eihployed in Germany, 149f, 155f; 
problem of readjustment after 
war, 159. 

World conquest: impossibility of, for 
Germany, 8. 

"Wumba," 158. 



Zabern doctrine: expounded by 
Chancellor, 51, 54. 

Zeppelin, Count: letter of, to Beth- 
mann-HoUweg, 86. 

Zeppelin: justification of, to Ger- 
mans. 204f. 

Zimmermann, Alfred: on German 
objectives in war, 19ff; attitude 
toward peace, 32 ; toward liberal- 
ization, 43, 45f¥; quoted on new 
movement, 46ff; portrait, 47; 
quoted on press, 67; quoted on 
American neutrality, 73 ; quoted 
on English attitude toward pro- 
tests of United Sates, 80; atti- 
tude on submarine policy, 82 ; 
quoted on neutrals, 316f; attitude 
of public toward, 356f. 



366 



16 89 






v.. 






,^ < 



.-C^ <>. ^ • • • A^ . 4* 









K^ ♦*''/QlH^*. "V* "^ ♦^A^^/k*' '^ i Deacidified using the Bookkeeper proc ^ 

V o ti^pWl^S, •- '^C,*' • i^C^^'tt^'^ " vr"^''^ Neutralizing agent: Magnesium-Oxide ^ 

^ a^^^^^- ^^ - ^^^^' S^ Treatment Date: j^L 2001 ^ 

\ "oy^i* ^^ ^'^'■^S^.* J" "^ PreservationTechnoloc ^ 

*^ 'O • » * /V '^ '«•» <0 A WORLD LEADER IN PAPER PRESERVATK 

• ^ *0 A^ o ' " • * '^ t ♦ *■ ' * ' ■>" Thomson Parti Drive 




8^^ N. MANCHESTER, 
^s^ INDIANA 46962 






